[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The GreatViews expressed here are not necessarily the views & opinions of ActivistChat.com. Comments are unmoderated. Abusive remarks may be deleted. ActivistChat.com retains the rights to all content/IP info in in this forum and may re-post content elsewhere.

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You claim that God has given us free will, which is the reason why evil acts occur. Yet, you also claim that God “might have to take steps to protect others from the abuse of freedom by His underlings.”

Do you not see the inconsistency?

No

Then I’ll explain this inconsistency in greater detail. You claim God gives us free will, and deems it so important that he allows free will to take precedence over stopping evil. This is your explanation for the existence of evil. Yet you also claim that God takes steps to protect some from the abuse of freedom by others. If he prevents some from abusing others and committing evil, he has thereby blocked free will for the sake of preventing evil. This is in direct contradiction of your first assumption, that God gave us free will and that’s why there is evil.

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If you look at real life in pagan or primitive societies, you will find people often don't love their families at all but abuse them.

Not true. If you compare Christian families with those of non-Christian, there will not be a significant difference in how each loves his own family. It’s a very arrogant and false assumption to think that Christian’s love their families more than pagans or non-Christians.

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I'm sure you understand that atheism is completely unprovable.

Atheism is as much un-provable as is a-Santa-Claus-ism. I doubt you believe in Santa Claus. I challenge you to prove he doesn’t exist. I would guess that you would set out to do this by using logic and reason. You would make arguments that set to show that his existence is illogical, and the probability of his existence is essentially zero. But have you really proved it? From a practical perspective, yes. But from an idealistic perspective, perhaps not. That’s because the probability of the lack of an entity or event can be deduced to be infinitely close to zero, but not zero. Only in this sense is the lack of an entity, or negative proof un-provable.

"What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof."
— Christopher Hitchens

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Ultimately the decision to be an atheist is a nonrational one in the same sense as the decision to believe in God is nonrational.

Not quite. I have shown on many levels why the idea and alleged thoughts and actions of God are illogical and thereby irrational. I have not heard any arguments on why atheism is contradictory, illogical, and irrational.

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Of course God can exist, otherwise some of the greatest minds that ever existed would have not have believed in him.

This is a very weak argument. Just because many people, including some of the greatest minds believed in something doesn’t make it true. Billions of people CAN be wrong. In fact, billions of people MUST be wrong. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc can’t all be right. In fact, at most only one can be right. Where does that leave everyone else? Where does that leave the greatest minds in all the other religions?

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For you "God can not exist" because of a choice you made not to believe.

The real choice I made was to approach the subject with a completely open mind. The choice I made was to use thought, logic, and reason instead of faith to reach my conclusions. I never made a direct choice to not believe in God. The fact that I do not believe in God was only the consequence of my real choice: the choice to seek reason and truth.

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…This has also removed their barriers to radical Islam. Christianity has been the moral wall which has protected Europe in the past. That wall has been torn down now and Europe is defenseless.

Christianity never protected Europe. It was at times used as a rallying tool for those who wished to protect Europe, but it never directly protected Europe. In fact, looking at history illustrates how Christianity has actually been a source of corruption and decay in Europe.

I don’t believe that Europe is currently defenseless against Islam. It does have quite a challenge ahead of it though. The last place it needs to look towards to meet that challenge is Christianity. To battle fire with fire will result in yet another burning of Europe.

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At the lowest levels the individual is completely self centered and can only respond to threats and authority. As they grow morally they grow to the mature level which is motivated by love and principles rather than for gain or pain.

I'm not sure it is possible for a human being to progress beyond stage I without discipline including rewards and punishments.

I am a bit puzzled, because in prior posts you said:

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If one believes God will love you if you follow the rules and will not love you if you disobey the rules you know He really doesn’t love you at all but is manipulating you and robbing you of your freedom.

and

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The moral path is love. God's appeal to humanity is not force or threats of violence but a demonstration of His unconditional love. You can not induce people to love you by appealing to selfish motives. Whether we chose to love Him in return is up to us and our free will.

These two prior quotes seem contradictory to your more recent one. You previously conveyed that God loves us regardless of us following the rules, and that his appeal to us is not by force or threats, but love. Yet you now say that humans initially can only respond to threats and authority and cannot progress without discipline including rewards and punishments.

And if a God that “will love you if you follow the rules and will not love you if you disobey the rules you know He really doesn’t love you at all but is manipulating you and robbing you of your freedom,” then that is true of the God no matter which stage of development we are at. Our stage of development does not excuse the behavior of that God.

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First, let me point out that fundamentalist Christians are rarely violent.

I know that you are not defining “fundamentalist Christians” the same way that popular culture defines it, but we need to be aware of both of these definitions.

Here is the first:

“From the Christian perspective, fundamentalist has traditionally referred to any follower of Christ who believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and who believes in its literal interpretation and fundamental teachings. The fundamental Christian believes in the experience of the "new birth" which occurs when faith is placed in Christ as Savior and Lord. To the world this may be viewed as radical, but is very basic to the Christian faith.
The idea of Christian Fundamentalism first emerged as a movement in the 19th century within various Protestant bodies, who reacted against the rising tide of evolutionary theories and modernist Biblical criticism. From a Bible conference of Conservative Protestants meeting in Niagara in 1895, a statement was issued containing what came to be known as the five points of fundamentalism: The verbal inerrancy of Scripture, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth, a substitutionary theory of the atonement, and the physical resurrection and bodily return of Christ.¹ In the first half of the 20th century, most Protestant churches in the U.S. were divided into either Fundamentalist or Modernist groups. The term has generally been applied to all those who adhere to strict, conservative (Protestant) orthodoxy in the matter of Biblical inspiration.”

And the second:

“In the broad sense, fundamentalism may be used to describe Christians who are uncompromising, conservative and who take their beliefs to the maximum — exactly how every believer should live. But because of recent, increased activism by those identified as fundamentalists, who have promoted unethical actions such as bringing violence against abortion clinics, doctors etc., some academic circles believe that fundamentalism has been redefined by our society. They believe that the philosophy of fundamentalism (at least in the world's eyes) has evolved into a legitimate form of extremism, with views too radical for the balanced, evangelical Christian. For this reason, fundamentalism may no longer be a term which accurately conveys what orthodox Christians really believe.”

Also, as I have pointed out, there is no evidence that Israel practiced jihad against other nations in an attempt to propagate their religion by force. They would fight their neighbors as a nation state and believed God would fight on their side if they followed Him, but there is no evidence they tried to impose their religious beliefs by force.

I never claimed otherwise. I agree that the Israelites didn’t wage wars of conversion – unlike Islam. But that was never my point when I highlighted those bible passages. I highlighted those passages to show the character of Yahweh. The purpose was to show that the Jewish God is sometimes an angry God, a vengeful God, a threatening God, a violent God, an unfair God, a sadistic God, a genocidal God, and a narcissistic God. “Conversion by force” had nothing to do with it. However, they did wage cruel wars of extermination and genocide against their non-Jewish neighbors, and according to the scriptures, God was right there encouraging, promoting, and helping them. It is apparent from the scriptures that the main motivation was to take the lands of their neighbors and exterminate them, and not necessarily "conversion by force."

It’s a good thing I don’t believe in this God, or I would be living every day of my life in fear. And I know that that is true of many theists (though perhaps not yourself). They live their life trying to please this God lest he unleash his wrath upon them.

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Of course, they would kill each other for religious reasons at times, but their wars against their neighbors were tribal in nature.

Correct. Like I said before, religion is not the only reason why people wage war, murder and kill each other. But it is one reason among many.

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Therefore there is no moral equivalence between the practices of Islam which wishes to expand it’s theology world wide through war and Judaism which is very reluctant to proselytize or Biblical Christianity which relies on persuasion to win converts.

I completely agree with you. Islam is a different entity altogether. I do criticize Christianity and Judaism, because I think that both are based on a false belief. I know that crimes have been committed in the name of each in the past; Christianity more than Judaism. But compared to islam, they are much more benign. Islam is by far the most violent, and its ideology is based on “do as you will, take what you want, kill as you please, as long as you are submissive to allah in the end.”

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The Catholic church claims a higher authority which transcends that of the Bible and it s through this authority that the popes could justify torturing and killing heretic. It is this departure from Biblical authority which divides the orthodox Catholics from the orthodox Protestants. Therefore o try to trace any of the crimes committed by the Catholic church to the Bible is a mistake.

I realize that. Most of the crimes that Christians committed in the name of Christianity were not the result of the bible directly instructing them to do so, but the result of religious elites’ interpretations. Nevertheless, as the numerous bible passages I previously illustrates, the bible is guilty of its own direct calls to violence and persecution.

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Also the modern Catholic church has apologized for many of it’s crimes against humanity

On behalf of humanity, I hereby accept the Catholic Church’s apology for its crimes against humanity. You see, I am quite capable of “forgiveness” at times.

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Now, I'm ready to present my understanding of this portion of the Hebrew scriptures. The way the actions of Moses and Joshua are presented in some places would make one would think they were extremely violent. Other places such as Judges presents a completely different picture in which the Israelites coexisted with their neighbors.

I don’t refute that there are instances in the scriptures that preach co-existence and peace. But the point is that if there are instances that they call for these violent behaviors, the former does not excuse the latter. If a completely benevolent being occasionally calls for evil deeds, the benevolence of that being comes into question, regardless of all the other times it has called for good things.

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On the other hand we shouldn't toss out the violence in the Hebrew scriptures since it establishes the right of a religious nation to defend itself. Although no religion has the right to force their ideas on other people, just because a nation is predominantly Christian does not mean the nation has to reject war to protect themselves or to protect other people from subjugation and abuse.

I believe that none of the passages I highlighted from the bible can be interpreted as a call for the Jews to simply defend themselves against subjugation and abuse. They are all offensive calls for violence and genocide, instigated by their God.

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If you have emigrants who move into your country with the intention of committing crimes against humanity which is the unfortunate choice many Muslim emigrants have made, the Christians, atheists and Hindus etc. have the right to defend their culture by what ever means necessary even if it means banning that religion from their lands.

You have raised a very hotly debatable point. Should society ban an idea or religion, because it is deemed too “evil” or “dangerous?” That’s a very good question indeed.

It is the old debate on the importance yet limit of freedom. As you know, “my right to swing my fists ends where your face begins.” So freedom does have a limit, and that limit is where the freedom of another to a happy and free life begins.

I completely understand your position, and a part of me wants to back up your claim. But another part of me thinks it is not that simple, and there will be other ramifications if we simply ban a religion.

If we ban a whole religion or ideology, a very powerful message will be sent. Today Islam, tomorrow Barney.

And let’s consider what it really means to “ban” a concept. It means that it will not be tolerated to exist in society. To enforce that intolerance, laws will have to be made. And the subsequence of breaking those laws is a punishment – usually incarceration. Are you really prepared to throw someone in jail for saying “I believe in Allah?”

The answer can’t be a ban on a whole religion. On the other hand, we cannot allow certain followers to completely “practice their religion” unchecked, insofar as some of those specific practices may not be acceptable and contrary to the laws of the land. So if a muslim tries to “practice” his religion by killing infidels, he has crossed the acceptable line into the realm of criminality. Of course, every “good muslim” is called upon to kill infidels by islam. So, I guess we’ll have to lock up all the “good muslims.”

So, the answer is to target some of the specific practices of a religion which are contrary to the laws of the land, but stand short of banning an entire religion.

And as annoying as Barney is to me, my daughter really likes him.

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10Stone the guilty ones to death because they have tried to draw you away from the LORD your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of slavery. 11Then all Israel will hear about it and be afraid, and such wickedness will never again be done among you.

This passage represents the stage of moral development at which Israel existed at that time. This was the starting point from which they progressed. If this were the end point rather than the beginning, then I would agree with your criticism. Also, that form of behavior was common in that time and was probably milder than some. For instance the Assyrians used to skin people alive and even in the time of the Romans and later in the time of the Muslims in Spain, people were crucified. Historical figures have to be judged according to the environment in which they lived.

You are somewhat correct in that a person’s era must be taken into consideration when judging him. But I am not judging Israel in relation to Assyria or Rome. And keep in mind that two wrongs don’t make a right.

I am not really judging Israel, but its God. It is this alleged God which allegedly gave these instructions to the Israelites. How primitive were the Israelites is irrelevant. We are examining their God. Their God was not primitive just because the Israelites were, was he? Yahweh has not matured morally since 3000 years ago, has he?

Since their God is also on a very primitive moral level, as the Israelites themselves, it is a logical conclusion that this God was in fact a concoction of the Israelites themselves. They made him up. And since a morally primitive people made him up at a time when morality in the world was more primitive, it makes sense that this God also appears morally primitive. And at that time, this God made sense and was relatively acceptable. But now, this God falls short of our current moral standard. How can this infinite God 3000 years ago have been the moral inferior of current man? Impossible.

And I can’t buy the defense of “well, these early Jews got it wrong about God….scriptures were man made and fallible….God is actually the opposite…”

These guys were the initial creators of Judeo-Christianity. And they got it wrong? And not only were they just a little off, but completely in the opposite direction. Could this really be? Impossible.

Let’s look at the available choices for an explanation here:

1. Yahweh, the infinitely benevolent and powerful God, 3000 years ago had the moral maturity which is below that of this 21st century simple human…..illogical

2. Or, the original creators of Judaism got the concept of God so wrong that it was in fact almost the complete opposite from a moral standpoint….illogical

3. Or, the creators of this religion, which lived in a much more morally primitive era, made up a God which to them made sense, relative to their times. As such, that God appears to be the moral inferior of current man. And as man himself has morally matured through time, his “God” also seems to have morally matured…..hmmmmm…..

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From the standpoint of a human unconditional love is impossible, only God can love unconditionally. On the other hand, only love which approaches unconditional love is of any value. "Love" which is given with conditions, other than the need for self preservation, is not a positive thing at all, but just manipulation. Indeed, this type of love is just another form of selfishness. That is not what Christianity is about. What Jesus said was to love your neighbor as yourself, not to love him unconditionally.

Not making much sense here. If unconditional love is impossible, and if Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves and not unconditionally, and if any other love other than unconditional love is not positive but manipulation, you are really saying that we are not capable of anything positive but just manipulation and that Jesus encourages this path of negativity and manipulation.

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Forgiveness is not making excuses for crimes or pretending they never happened.

Well, here is the dictionary definition of “forgiveness:”

1. To excuse for a fault or an offense; pardon.
2. To renounce anger or resentment against.
3. To absolve from payment of (a debt, for example).

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Forgiveness is a positive step in emotional healing by releasing the hurts and pains so one can move on. Until you forgive someone, you carry them around with you all the time and are actually closely emotionally linked to them.

So I ask you, have you forgiven Hitler for killing 6 million Jews, and millions of others?

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Good point. I did learn the concept of the good God from the Bible or cultural elites, however once understood, the concept itself is not dependent upon the cultural elites.

Whether or not you keep re-referencing to the current religious elites or not is irrelevant. Your entire understanding of God and Christianity originated from these cultural or religious elites, and thus the concept has been derived from the religious elites. You are still following the word of others; that of the cultural elites from centuries ago.

If you create an entirely new religion, based on completely different ideas than the current world religions, and proclaimed yourself a prophet in that religion, then I would concede that you have not followed the cultural elites. You would yourself thus become a cultural elite, provided you got enough people to believe you. But as I said before, you cannot follow Christianity yet proclaim that you are not following the cultural or religious elites.

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Yes, it is true that we don’t know everything about this alleged God. But we do know some things. And frequently either the premises about him contradict each other or his words and actions are illogical. And since it is illogical to fathom a supreme being that is all powerful, all wise, and the creator of the universe as himself being illogical, one can only deduce that such a creature does not exist.

As you know, I don't accept the premises you begin with so I have no difficulties along those lines.

Actually, these “premises” that you speak of are not my premises. I didn’t make them up. These are the premises which have been set forth by theism and those who made up these religions.

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I believe we have discussed the Israelites quite extensively above so to try to keep this post readable, I will pass on this one here. Suffice it to say, that for the nation of Israel to be a blessing to the whole world they had to exist.

To exist is one thing, but to harshly oppress and exterminate others is quite another. Could we excuse Nazi atrocities by saying “well…the Nazis had to exist?”

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Not really. We can treat them for what they really are, a historically based folk memory told from the viewpoint of later generations of Israelites. History is always told from someone's point of view, that doesn't mean history is wrong or is simply myth in the sense that it is not true. On the other hand, other people may have a different interpretation of the same events. What I’m doing is taking the facts told in the Hebrew scriptures combining them with the latest archeological discoveries and trying to interpret them in light of the entire Bible.

It is true that history is sometimes told from different viewpoints. Insofar as the interpretations or analyses of events, it can somewhat vary and not be problematic. But in its description of facts and events, there can only be one correct history. If other “viewpoints” differ from actual events, then they are really not history but mythology. Most historical events either happened or didn’t happen. Either Jesus was born of a virgin birth, or he wasn’t. That claim is either historical fact, or mythological non-sense. And if something is later shown to be mythological non-sense, we must abandon it instead of trying to somehow combine it with actual history. That would be a mistake, and would only result in half-truths, or further mythology.

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The French "enlightenment" was an attempt to solve the world's problems through atheism and pure reason. The unfortunate results have been the formation of hedonistic, narcissistic societies which have caused huge amounts of human suffering.

If a society is hedonistic, it is the shortfall of that society’s members and not atheism. Religious societies (including Christian ones) have also been hedonistic and narcissistic at times.

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…or you can reject the concept of a good God for whatever reason and in the process lose the ability to define morality in the first place…

Theism has no greater claim to morality than atheism…..I believe I have demonstrated that fact in my prior arguments.

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It appears you are arguing both sides of the question. When God intervenes to save the nation of Israel, you deplore the violence and when he allows history to flow unimpeded you claim He doesn't care.

Actually, I am not arguing both sides at all.

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When God intervenes to save the nation of Israel, you deplore the violence

The bible passages I point to cannot possibly be misconstrued as God intervening to save Israel. In those passages, clearly God is enticing the Jews to commit atrocities against others, or even themselves, if any of them should stray from God. “Saving Israel?” Come on now. In fact, I questioned why he actually DIDN’t save the Jews….65 years ago. “Saving Israel” does not mean this:

9Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. 10They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. 11After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, 12they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho. 13Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the people went to meet them outside the camp. 14But Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle.
15"Why have you let all the women live?" he demanded. 16"These are the very ones who followed Balaam's advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the LORD at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the LORD's people. 17Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. 18Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.

Numbers 31: 9-18

When this God allegedly freed the Jews from Babylon or Egypt, did I criticize? No…more power to him. But how are the passages I demonstrate from the bible an example of God “saving the Jews?”

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and when he allows history to flow unimpeded you claim He doesn't care

I sure do... and he sure doesn’t…if he existed…which he surely does not.

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He can restore everything in the end and allows us to experiment and learn through hard experiences now knowing He can and will step in eventually to correct our mistakes. That is what the resurrection is all about and paradise is all about, death is not the final curtain. Paradise is the ability to live in the restored universe within God’s presence.

What you are describing is that this life is just a charade. That this life is just a mock trial to prepare us for the afterlife. That this life is just “practice.”

This is what I’m talking about when I say that theism actually takes away from the importance of this life, whereas atheism allows one to truly appreciate and savor this life and places all importance on this current life; the only life we really have.

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In Hitler's Table Talk he discusses his allies quite extensively. At that time he realized his own mortality and had no interest in dominating either Japan or Italy. His vision was for Germany to become a great colonial power just as England and to a lesser extent France. His colonies would be Eastern Russia which he intended to subjugate and populate with Germans who would lord it over their Slavic surfs. On the other hand, it is clear he wanted to maintain control over the European countries he had conquered so that they would not be a future threat to Germany. He expressed sorrow that he wouldn't live long enough to see Germany fulfill its destiny according to his vision. He kept hoping the British and American people would realize it was in their best interest to leave the war and make peace with Germany with it's territorial conquests assured.

I appreciate your understanding of the book “Table Talk,” and do not challenge it. You obviously have formed your opinion of Hitler based on this book, and I respect that. All I’m saying is that my opinion of him goes beyond just the text he wrote, and is based more on his actions. And his actions to me indicate a desire for global domination beyond just Eastern Europe.

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If you accept as I do that our founders were profoundly religious men who wrote our constitution with the express purpose to protect religious observance and based our democracy on the assumption that people would hold shared moral beliefs based on religion, then your argument is not very convincing. The glue which has held our country together is the shared morality provided by religion. Remove that glue and we become just another failed state.

But I actually don’t accept this statement as you do.

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Again, as before, I must take issue with your claim that Christianity is foundational to western civilization, or that islam is foundational to eastern civilization.

I don't understand your thinking. Religion has such a profound effect on any group of people I don’t see how it can be denied. To reject the effect of religion on society is almost like saying climate or geography has no effect on culture.

Religion does have a profound effect on many people, and indeed it cannot be denied. However, where I disagree is in your claim that Christianity is the foundation of western civilization. As I have said before, Christianity has played a big role in western civilization, but it is false to state that Christianity and western civilization are equivalent, or even that the foundation of western civilization is Christianity.

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In the Bible God identifies Himself as the I AM THAT I AM

God sounds a lot like Popeye (just kidding).

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Again, there is ambiguity and folly in the term CAN as used here. What does it mean, that a fact CAN or CANNOT be known? If a fact or event exists, it is a piece of information. If an entity CANNOT know that information, it is only testimony to the limited omniscience of that entity. And since omniscience becomes a meaningless and hollow concept if it is limited, this means that the entity in question cannot be omniscient, by definition.

And if you change the definition of the term omniscience by adding CAN, you have turned the term omniscience meaningless.

Instead of destroying the term omniscience, why not realize that God actually cannot be omniscient, or if he is omniscient, that other contradictions arise?

I'm quite comfortable with my definition, however we could state things differently if that suites you. In the Bible God identifies Himself as the I AM THAT I AM and doesn't try to explain His existence any further. Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth and the life." Perhaps we should say God is salvation and truth and life and leave it at that.

This doesn’t really address my points about the inconsistencies that arise from the concept of an omnipotent and omniscient being. Instead of dealing with these inconsistencies, you invoke God’s claim that “I am that I am.” What does that mean? Does it really tell us anything? That’s really God’s (or rather, the creators of God’s) excuse to not have to make sense, and discourage us from asking questions.

It’s the old “because I said so” phrase I keep hearing coming out of God’s mouth – or rather, the mouths of the people who created God.

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"I am the way, and the truth and the life." Perhaps we should say God is salvation and truth and life and leave it at that.

This statement is what we call “asking for faith.” I realize that religion is based on faith. And if one wishes to just have faith and accept God, then that’s fine. But then, there is really no point in having an argument or discussion. Because as we both know, the purpose of a discussion or debate is to appeal to reason and logic…not faith.

Therefore, in a discussion faith plays no role.

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It is a fact that most of the individuals whom schizophrenics claim to be actually existed. They aren't smart enough to create a whole new persona. For instance, when Albert Einstein claimed to be Albert Einstein, no one thought about locking him up in a psych ward for making those claims.

That’s because Albert didn’t claim to be God, or to be in communication with God, or to be the son of God, or heard any little voices inside his head.

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For there to be a counterfeit there has to be a genuine original first. The fact that schizophrenics claim to be "Jesus" shows just how much influence Jesus' life and teachings have actually had and how powerful an effect Jesus’ teachings have had.

Actually, not necessarily. Not everyone claims to be Jesus. Some claim to be God himself, or the Devil. So, where is the genuine original? Also, some schizophrenics make the equivalent claims of being Zolbar, the alien overlord from the planet Bortex. Where is the genuine original Zolbar; did anyone ever meet him?

But I don’t discount the effect that Jesus had on humanity. I also don’t discount the effect that Mohammad and his teachings had on humanity. Whether those effects were positive or negative, however, is a whole other matter. And I assure you that mental patients in the Middle East frequently claim to be Ali, or Mohammad, or some other Islamic shmuck. Would you make the same argument regarding Mohammad and Ali?

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Just as Einstein was not crazy because he claimed to be himself, Jesus was not crazy for making claims to be Himself.

Einstein claiming to be Einstein did not make him crazy. Had he made other claims, however….

Similarly, Jesus claiming to be Jesus did not make him crazy. What made him potentially crazy (and I’m not saying he was) was him claiming to be the son of God, and being in communication with God.

If he actually did make such claims (being the son of God, etc) then he was either a con-man because he was actually of very sound mind but was fooling people, or was indeed delusional and not quite mentally balanced.

Another possibility does exist, however, which I think is just as likely if not more likely. That he himself actually never made such claims, and only preached a philosophy of love and kindness. He was then raised to be “the son of God” after his death by his followers, who wanted to make him out to be larger than what he really was. I’m not sure whether this is true or not, but it is a possibility which I have often pondered.

Yet another possibility is that Jesus himself did never exist, and the idea of Jesus was made up by the “apostles.”

Oh yeah…there’s also one more possibility….that Jesus was in fact the son of God…but since God doesn’t exist, it becomes very difficult to be the son of God.

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However, to say I’m not mainstream because I have a different understanding is a mistake. You can hold the same truths in common with a completely different perspective of what they really mean at a deeper level.

Dictionary definition of mainstream:

“The prevailing current of thought, influence, or activity.
Representing the prevalent attitudes, values, and practices of a society or group.”

Your views on God, and how you define him is different than the one I have repeatedly encountered, and I’m sure you must agree that the vast majority of theists don’t think of God the way that you do, and that the current Church ideology varies on its opinion of God from you. Since your attitude regarding God and religion is not representative of the prevailing attitude regarding God within the theistic world, I do believe I am correct in claiming you to not be “mainstream.” When I made that statement, it was actually meant as a compliment, and not meant to be offensive. However, if it bothered you, I retract calling you non-mainstream.

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Since I'm not God, I may be missing something here, but I doubt it. To me, the Greek concept of God is not a perfect God at all but resembles a statue or possibly a vase of plastic flowers. What good is mindless power? The Biblical God who is a personal being seems vastly superior to me.

I understand that you have chosen to view God as you do because this way he is more attractive, and does not appear to be just an empty shell or statue. That’s fine. In a way, it’s actually natural. You have humanized God in this way, and it becomes easier to relate to him. However, as I have pointed out, if you try to make sense of this God then problems arise.

Furthermore, I think this is yet another example of “Man creating God in his own image.”

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Actually, I believe I am saying the opposite of what you think I am saying. If God gives us unconditional love, that is what causes a world without consequences. If we receive unconditional love, he loves us regardless of what we do. Someone like Hitler can kill as he pleases, and be accepted by God’s unconditional love in the end. Unconditional love means a free pass for anyone to do anything as far as God is concerned. And that is contradictory to his desire for us to act morally.

Only by His giving us a free pass can we really love.

So you are saying that God does indeed hand out free passes. I’m sure you must understand that the ramification of a “free pass” is a world without consequences. If anyone can do as he pleases, without having to answer for anything then consequences disappear. And if consequences disappear, how can there be any morality? Along with the consequences, morality gets thrown out the window.

In this way, not only does theism not have a greater claim to morality than atheism, but theism hereby has no claim to morality at all.

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"Love" which is forced is not love but selfishness.

And yet, there are very numerous instances of “forced love” or worship found in the Hebrew scriptures. Shall I cite them again?

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It is interesting that we agree on so many things. After reading Darwin's books, many of the Germans who considered themselves very scientific, actually tried to explain morality based on evolution. In fact, there are many people today who have fallen into that trap. Hitler was one of those people who openly used evolution as his moral standard.

This was a mistake of arrogance on their part.

We cannot look to evolution to give us the guiding principles of morality. We cannot base our laws on the principles of evolution. If we did that, there would be only one law: that there are no laws.

However, this doesn’t mean that the theory of evolution as an explanation of a great part of the biologic world is incorrect. It is simply a fact of nature. A consequence of evolution has been man’s intelligence. And it is this intelligence that has given us morality. And it is this morality which has allowed us to elevate ourselves and “evolve” out of simple rudimentary evolutionary rules. Keep in mind though, that it can be argued that even though our morality allows us to seemingly go against the basic principles of evolution, we actually have never left the realm of evolutionary theory. It is evolution which gave us our brains and intellect, and it is our brains and intellect that gave us our morality.

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The truth is that the Bible contains divine truth but is written by humans with human language and with human understanding.

Where is the divine truth, and where is the human error of language and understanding? Can anyone separate the two? It therefore all becomes suspect to error.

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My exegesis actually makes sense, but it takes considerable time to catch on to what I'm up to. I haven't changed my opinions to make them appear better for the debate, I have been very consistent from the beginning. You're apparently trying to combat what you think the Bible says or perhaps what you have learned from someone else and are missing the mark because that is not where I am. I take Jesus' teachings about God's love as foundational and then build from there. As a Christian I don't see how I could logically do otherwise.

OK…..but what’s your point?

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If the truth of a religion were just a matter of which holy man was inspired your argument would be persuasive. People would arbitrarily choose which "prophet" they wished to follow and submit to him and fight all the rest.

That’s exactly what has always happened. Each “prophet” gets the local population to believe in him, and eventually that religion gets large enough that it begins to infringe on other religions’ territories, which then causes a fight. All you have to do is to look at history.

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To be successful in the free market place of ideas, a religion has to actually make sense

Does it make sense that Eve was made out of Adam’s rib?

Does it make sense that Noah lived to be 950 years old?

Does it make sense that Imam Mahdi has been hiding down a well for centuries?

Does it make sense that God sent his only son to be tortured and killed by man, in order to save mankind? And he sent him via a “virgin birth?” I forgot…Fed Ex wasn’t available back then.

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The ancient Israelites measured their success militarily and that is clearly a useful guide but is clearly incomplete.

That’s a mistake. It measures “might over right.”

Besides, every culture and every religion has at times had military success and at other times failure. What does this say about all religions?

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The best measure I have found so far is which country has the most people wishing to immigrate into the country and which has the most folks wishing to emigrate elsewhere. When you have to erect walls to keep people out, that is a successful society.

This is true. This does reflect a successful society. However, it does not necessarily reflect a moral society. The fact that people wish to emigrate somewhere is mostly a reflection of that society’s economic success. People flocked to ancient Rome for a while because of its economic success. But as you well know, Rome was no example of a moral society.

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What we do know is that God will do what's best for each individual.

He has definitely fallen short of that objective so far. Try telling that to the thousands that die each day in Africa because of hunger, disease, and violence.

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I never have had any strong feelings regarding homosexuality either way. So long as they are not hurting anyone else, I really don't care what consenting adults do privately so long as no one is hurt.

I’m glad you feel that way. I’m sure you are aware that the vast majority of Christians and the Catholic Church don’t share your views. Christian values (as well as other religions) cause widespread condemnation of homosexuals, and try to prevent them from gaining equal rights, including marriage.

Whatever happened to “equality of man before God?” Are homosexuals not our equals? Do they not deserve equal rights?

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It’s fine if we don’t have an exact transcript of a person’s speech. If we have accurate documentation of that person’s words and deeds, we can form a reasonably accurate basis of that person. Therefore, if you believe that the gospels are extremely accurate, we may scrutinize Jesus.

As for Jesus himself, I have yet to receive an understanding of whether he was a man, and therefore fallible, or God, and therefore infallible.

The Bible presents Him as both. He had knowledge about the character of the Father which was first hand and exceeded what was available to other humans, but said He didn't know the day or the hour of His returning. I really have no basis to speculate beyond those facts which are found in the Bible.

Fair enough. Thank you for your honest input.

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I agree. And since the scriptures supposedly highlight God’s word and behavior, they reflect God himself. And since there is an abundance of God making threats, destroying, killing, terrorizing, and humiliating man in the scriptures (as shown abundantly in my prior quotes from the scriptures), the presence of this “universal love” which this alleged God holds for us is not only challengeable but utterly contradictory.

Eventually, God sent His own Son to the earth so we could see for ourselves God's character. When one goes back to the Hebrew scriptures, one can find God's character but you have to stand back a little to get the picture. It is like pictures painted by followers of the school of pointillism, if you look closely at the detains you see meaningless bits of data, but if you stand back you see a beautiful picture. In reading the Hebrew scriptures, one has to stand back to get the overall picture to understand the meaning. Jesus understood the picture and not only explained it to us but lived it.

So when we see the following in the scriptures:

19 The LORD saw this and rejected them
because he was angered by his sons and daughters.
20 "I will hide my face from them," he said,
"and see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
children who are unfaithful.
21 They made me jealous by what is no god
and angered me with their worthless idols.
I will make them envious by those who are not a people;
I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding.
22 For a fire has been kindled by my wrath,
one that burns to the realm of death below.
It will devour the earth and its harvests
and set afire the foundations of the mountains.
23 "I will heap calamities upon them
and spend my arrows against them.
24 I will send wasting famine against them,
consuming pestilence and deadly plague;
I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts,
the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
25 In the street the sword will make them childless;
in their homes terror will reign.
Young men and young women will perish,
infants and gray-haired men.

Deuteronomy 32: 19-25

All this, because some idiot decided to worship an idol instead of Yahweh.

So when we see this, we are actually focused too closely and are missing the big picture?

Couldn’t someone make the same case for Hitler? “Oh, don’t focus on the minor details of what I said and did…so what if I killed a few people?...look at the big picture….I was planning to build a superb society…blah blah blah”

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God made a “covenant” with the Israelites (and supposedly the rest of mankind). So he made a contract. What is the purpose of a contract? To convey that “if you do this, I’ll do that.” It is the essence of a condition. It is also the exact opposite of giving “unconditional love.” It is impossible for God to offer unconditional love while maintaining a contract with humanity.

Perhaps you aren't acquainted with the terms of the New Covenant which Christians believe was ratified by Jesus. I don't see how this covenant can be against God's unconditional love.
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Jer 31:31-34
31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD,
"when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,"
declares the LORD.
33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
declares the LORD.
"For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."

NIV

This changes nothing. God is making a “new” covenant with man. So what? It’s still a covenant, which means a contract. God is still indirectly saying “let’s make a deal.” God is making a new contract, because supposedly man kept breaking the old contract so many times that God got frustrated and saw that it wasn’t working out well. A new contract in lieu of an old contract? What’s the difference? It’s still a contract. The terms of the contract are not important. Just that there IS a contract. He still speaks of his laws, but he is just “more confident” this time that man will obey, because supposedly it will be written on man’s mind.

A contract means that there are conditions. Hence, it is impossible for God to love us “unconditionally.” The two premises, of a covenant or contract, and that of unconditional love, are mutually exclusive. The concept of both of them existing is laughable.

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Carl Marx said "religion is the opiate of the people." Unfortunately the atheistic ideology he invented was and is much like having major surgery without any anesthetic. Sometimes a little opiate is necessary for survival. The results of Marxism have been always the same, societies which are so bad people would rather die trying to escape than to live in these Godless paradises.

As far as opiates, though sometimes some people need it to have surgery, its abused consequences on society are immense and undeniable.

Atheism is simply the disbelief in the existence of God. Nothing less, and nothing more. If an atheist goes further and forms new ideas, those ideas are not necessarily relevant to atheism. Communism is an example of a step that an atheist took beyond atheism, which is not related to atheism itself.

And if a society (such as Eastern Europe) turned into a hell hole from which everyone wished to escape, don’t blame atheism. Other factors, such as communism, corruption, dictatorship, and oppression were the underlying reasons. Perhaps you are not aware that Eastern European countries have been and remain some of the most religious Christians. The Russian Orthodoxy retains a great following.

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It is true that the Bible contains good news which is almost too good to be true.

It’s not just too good to be true; it’s riddled with inconsistency and non-sense.

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Either Jesus was a lunatic who made absurd claims and Paul was a fool, or they were the genuine articles. From my own experience with lunatics and from my own Bible study, I’m convinced no lunatic could have invented the religion which is so designed to lead us to higher planes of moral development and deeper spirituality. After years of study, I can understand it, but I certainly couldn’t have invented it.

This is not true. Some mentally ill people can be quite functional, and actually quite creative.

The inventor of PCR (polymerase chain reaction), which is used to amplify DNA segments for sequencing, admitted that he got the idea for PCR while taking LSD. He was on an acid trip, which temporarily simulates schizophrenia, when he came up with this idea.

And have you seen the movie “A Beautiful Mind?” It is based on a true story. The mathematics professor who derived one of the most ingenious mathematical solutions was a delusional schizophrenic at the time.

I once had a conversation with a schizophrenic who told me an elaborate story about his life as an alien, his mission here on earth, and the fact that "the mother ship" would be coming for him soon. All of it was plausible, except that I knew better. I would have a more difficult time disproving him than disproving someone who claimed to be the son of this God. At least there were no logical inconsistencies in this guy's story.

Depending on the individual, and the severity and extent of the disease, a schizophrenic can most definitely come up with ingenious and unique ideas. In fact, if someone really believes he is the son of God, the religion he forms is proof of that fact. But like I said previously, I am not definitively pointing to Jesus as a lunatic. I discussed the possibilities above, as you recall.

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Jesus died with the faith that His father would restore Him and it happened just as He had expected. He actually was raised, His tomb was empty. Muhammad’s tomb is with us, Moses died and was buried, only Jesus’ tomb is empty.

An empty tomb? This is your proof that Jesus had a resurrection? You do realize that there are a couple of Pharaohs’ tombs which have also been found to be empty. I’m sure that these Pharaohs were also the sons of God.

Regarding Cyrus’ post:

Very interesting. I’ll take more time to take in this excerpt in greater detail. Very interesting indeed. Thanks for the post._________________I am Dariush the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage

Then I’ll explain this inconsistency in greater detail. You claim God gives us free will, and deems it so important that he allows free will to take precedence over stopping evil. This is your explanation for the existence of evil. Yet you also claim that God takes steps to protect some from the abuse of freedom by others. If he prevents some from abusing others and committing evil, he has thereby blocked free will for the sake of preventing evil. This is in direct contradiction of your first assumption, that God gave us free will and that’s why there is evil.

Every person has the opportunity to exercise free will including the choice to do evil. The fact that God intervenes at times doesn't inhibit people from exercising free will but often enhances it. For instance, Hitler exercised his free will, but was eventually stopped by the Allies who used their free will, chose to fight and die based on their understanding of right and wrong to oppose him. The Allie's intervention did not in any way prevent Hitler from exercising his free will in the least. If God didn't intervene we would all be slaves to the bad god and would have no free will.

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Not true. If you compare Christian families with those of non-Christian, there will not be a significant difference in how each loves his own family. It’s a very arrogant and false assumption to think that Christian’s love their families more than pagans or non-Christians.

So, because I disagree with you I'm "arrogant?"
First, I didn't say all Pagans don't love their families, I believe there are good people in all cultures. I also believe that there is a natural biological drive which tends to make most mammals including people love and protect their families. That is not what I'm talking about.
Second, to make sure there is no misunderstanding, I didn't say that no Christian families contain abuse since not everyone who takes the names of Christ follows His teachings.

However, since you can not claim that abuse does not occur in families or that all families love each other your argument misses the point. For instance, shall we discuss female genital mutilation or honor killings? What about wife beatings? In many cultures infanticide is common, usually female babies. You can not tell me those things don't occur. Jesus' message is to transform our hearts so we will love our families more and to abstain from abusing our families. If His teachings help any families at all, that good.

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Atheism is as much un-provable as is a-Santa-Claus-ism. I doubt you believe in Santa Claus. I challenge you to prove he doesn’t exist. I would guess that you would set out to do this by using logic and reason. You would make arguments that set to show that his existence is illogical, and the probability of his existence is essentially zero. But have you really proved it? From a practical perspective, yes. But from an idealistic perspective, perhaps not. That’s because the probability of the lack of an entity or event can be deduced to be infinitely close to zero, but not zero. Only in this sense is the lack of an entity, or negative proof un-provable.

Well, now that you mentioned it, Santa Clause actually did exist. He was a historical figure.

I believe you already admitted that science has no way to understand the first cause. Also, when I said science was not meant to disprove God's existence, you didn't object because of course you know better. So from my point of view, what we are discussing is not whether the first cause exists beyond the reach of science, but whether the first cause is conscious or not. Since science can not address that issue, we are left with metaphysics and philosophy to address the issue. So exactly what does Santa Clause have to do with the identity of the first cause?

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What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof."
— Christopher Hitchens

Incidentally, did Christopher Hitchens offer proof for this statement? Yet you quote it as if it were logical. This illustrates my point. It is my understanding that logical thinking always starts from various axioms which are not provable. Because you start from other axioms than I do doesn't make you more rational or irrational than me.

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Not quite. I have shown on many levels why the idea and alleged thoughts and actions of God are illogical and thereby irrational. I have not heard any arguments on why atheism is contradictory, illogical, and irrational.

Those people who think they are the most logical are often the most guided by their emotions. For instance the French Revolution was supposed to be based on the light of pure reason and yet they were some of the most irrational people ever. The human mind is much more than a calculating machine.

My perception of our discussion and yours are quite different. I have seen you trying very hard to trip me up over and over again which is OK, that is what makes discussions interesting. Perhaps you don't like some of my answers but I haven't liked some of your answers either. I believe I've caught you in logical and factual inconsistencies several times and haven't made a big deal about it, you quietly dropped the subject and I didn't press the issues or bring them up again. From my perspective, the purpose of this discussion is to have fun and learn, not to win.

If theism were that easy to overthrow logically, some of the greatest minds in the history wouldn't have belonged to theists. I brought up consciousness which you didn't seem interested in pursuing. If the issue under discussion is whether the first cause is conscious or not, consciousness would have to be a central item of any rational discussion.

I don't believe in beating people over the head when we disagree since the discussion is mostly for mutual instruction, but perhaps I should point out a few observations I've made. I believe the only rational position for an atheist to take is materialism and determinism both of which you seem to deny. So from my perspective, your positions are difficult to understand. Nietzsche was a very straightforward atheist and was clear in his embrace of materialism and determinism. As I understand his argument, he denied people had a free will and claimed we make up reasons for why we do things after the fact. In other words to be true to the materialist philosophy he had to believe that much of what we experience on a daily basis is an illusion. It has been a while since I read it, but I am also quite sure he argued that the ego itself is an illusion. To me it seems that if you take atheism to the logical extreme, you end up with just as many or more unanswered questions and logical inconsistences as you do with theism.

If you believe in free will, to be logical, you have to explain how a brain made out of atoms which don't have the property of consciousness can be made conscious much less have freedom. As I pointed out earlier, freedom, as I have heard it defined, always means an uncaused cause. Materialism is all about cause and effect, you break the chain of cause and effect and the entire intellectual edifice collapses. A major argument against miracles is that they break the chain of cause and effect. It appears modern science is very close to breaking that very thing which should make materialists rethink their positions.

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This is a very weak argument. Just because many people, including some of the greatest minds believed in something doesn’t make it true. Billions of people CAN be wrong. In fact, billions of people MUST be wrong. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc can’t all be right. In fact, at most only one can be right. Where does that leave everyone else? Where does that leave the greatest minds in all the other religions?

This statement is exactly why I maintain that decisions about God and religion are all to some extent non rational. If great minds which are all very rational can disagree, then the issue must be beyond the reach of objective reason. In that case it is logically incorrect to say people are "wrong" unless of course you know more than everyone else and can know they are all wrong and you are correct. I have always viewed various religions as blind people describing an elephant from different positions based on feeling alone. Many of the differences are due to perspective, not reality. If you believe God loves everyone unconditionally as I do, I have to believe He loves Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and atheists just as much as He loves me.

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The real choice I made was to approach the subject with a completely open mind. The choice I made was to use thought, logic, and reason instead of faith to reach my conclusions. I never made a direct choice to not believe in God. The fact that I do not believe in God was only the consequence of my real choice: the choice to seek reason and truth.

I probably should have worded this differently since it could be construed as personal which was not my intent. Thought, logic and reason are all good things and I am completely for using them as much as possible, but they won't encompass all reality. Logic always begins from axioms which themselves are unproven. As Godel demonstrated, it is even impossible to construct a theory of mathematics which encompasses all mathematical truth. As Descartes discovered, when he threw out everything which he couldn't prove, he was left with only one thing, his own consciousness. "I think, therefore I am."

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Christianity never protected Europe. It was at times used as a rallying tool for those who wished to protect Europe, but it never directly protected Europe. In fact, looking at history illustrates how Christianity has actually been a source of corruption and decay in Europe.

I don’t believe that Europe is currently defenseless against Islam. It does have quite a challenge ahead of it though. The last place it needs to look towards to meet that challenge is Christianity. To battle fire with fire will result in yet another burning of Europe.

That is your opinion which you are entitled to, but you have offered no evidence to support your argument. On the other hand, I have offered quite a bit of evidence to the contrary. In a discussion it is easy to be misunderstood, so I wish to clarify the situation. I do welcome the secularists such as Mr Hitchens who have recognized the problem and have written about it. We're all in this together. But unfortunately, there are many more secularists and even a few Christians who really don't seem to care what happens to their culture.

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These two prior quotes seem contradictory to your more recent one. You previously conveyed that God loves us regardless of us following the rules, and that his appeal to us is not by force or threats, but love. Yet you now say that humans initially can only respond to threats and authority and cannot progress without discipline including rewards and punishments.

And if a God that “will love you if you follow the rules and will not love you if you disobey the rules you know He really doesn’t love you at all but is manipulating you and robbing you of your freedom,” then that is true of the God no matter which stage of development we are at. Our stage of development does not excuse the behavior of that God.

God loves people unconditionally, but He deals with people differently depending upon where they are spiritually and intellectually. That is the only loving thing to do. The goal is to help people reach the highest spiritual and moral plain they are capable of reaching.

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“In the broad sense, fundamentalism may be used to describe Christians who are uncompromising, conservative and who take their beliefs to the maximum — exactly how every believer should live. But because of recent, increased activism by those identified as fundamentalists, who have promoted unethical actions such as bringing violence against abortion clinics, doctors etc., some academic circles believe that fundamentalism has been redefined by our society. They believe that the philosophy of fundamentalism (at least in the world's eyes) has evolved into a legitimate form of extremism, with views too radical for the balanced, evangelical Christian. For this reason, fundamentalism may no longer be a term which accurately conveys what orthodox Christians really believe.”

Let me be clear, I do not believe I fit the first definition of a fundamentalist Christian if one has to believe there are no mistakes in the Bible. Yet I consider myself a conservative Christian since I take the Bible very seriously and base my theology on it. I certainly don't consider myself a "modernist."

If you take the second definition, even that group is rarely violent. Most people who are considered fundamentalist are very reasonable when you talk to them. Of course you can't stop people from claiming to be Christians who are not attached to mainstream thought by any stretch. I understand there is a man with an extended family who goes around claiming to be a "Baptist" who does nothing but spread hatred. So far as I know they haven't been violent, but they sure are revolting. The reason I stand up for them when they are non violent and not disgusting is because many innocent people are lumped into a group and slandered. Those people also have a positive contribution to make to our society, have the right to be heard and are often demonized and misrepresented.

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I never claimed otherwise. I agree that the Israelites didn’t wage wars of conversion – unlike Islam. But that was never my point when I highlighted those bible passages. I highlighted those passages to show the character of Yahweh. The purpose was to show that the Jewish God is sometimes an angry God, a vengeful God, a threatening God, a violent God, an unfair God, a sadistic God, a genocidal God, and a narcissistic God. “Conversion by force” had nothing to do with it. However, they did wage cruel wars of extermination and genocide against their non-Jewish neighbors, and according to the scriptures, God was right there encouraging, promoting, and helping them. It is apparent from the scriptures that the main motivation was to take the lands of their neighbors and exterminate them, and not necessarily "conversion by force."

It’s a good thing I don’t believe in this God, or I would be living every day of my life in fear. And I know that that is true of many theists (though perhaps not yourself). They live their life trying to please this God lest he unleash his wrath upon them.

These points are very well taken. One of the major breakthroughs I made as I matured was the understanding of God's unconditional love. One of my professors in college was a deep thinker who helped me understand freedom. I was pleased recently to read an article he wrote where he claims his discovery of God's unconditional love his biggest spiritual insight. If you study the teachings of Jesus and His disciples deeply enough, the conclusion of God's infinite love is unavoidable.

Since I'm not a fundamentalist, my take on the ancient Israelites is different than theirs. Most of them tend to go with dispensationalism. I believe the ancient Israelites did indeed consider Jehovah to be the authoritarian being you describe and really thought their wars were pleasing to Him. What we find in Joshua and Judges is an authentic picture of how the people at that time believed in God. The fact that later generations didn't go through and smooth the writings off and didn't try to reconcile contradictions is strong evidence of just how much they treasured and protected the Bible.

As I pointed out, there is much evidence in the Hebrew scriptures which support God's infinite love. Although the Israelites failed many times and in many ways, God continued to love them. I did a study of God's love awhile back and was stunned that there were as many or more passages describing God's love in the Hebrew scriptures than in the New Testament.
The Psalms are filled with descriptions of God's love, for instance:
Ps 100:4-5
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
NIV

Even for the most unsophisticated Christian, there should never be fear of God's anger. The gospel is very simple:
John 3:16-18
16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned,
NIV
Simply accept God's free gift and trust Him to fulfill His promises. Let me give you another example:
1 John 4:16-18
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
NIV
In other words, he who lives in fear "is not made perfect in love." Again, if someone wants to rise to higher levels of moral development, they must act from love, not from fear or greed. The mental state of fear you describe can not be considered a righteous state according to the New Testament.

Just in case you might think I'm unusual, let me quote John Locke, one of the major Christian thinkers who I believe profoundly influenced our founding fathers. He based his argument for religious liberty on the same theology which I've been proposing. In A Letter Concerning Toleration he phrased his argument thus on page one:
"If the Gospel and the apostles may be credited, no man can be a Christian without charity, and without that faith which works, not by force, but by love...." In other words he based his entire argument on the fact that God leads us by love, not by force and we should show the same attitude towards other people.

I'm glad you don't believe in the bad God either.

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I completely agree with you. Islam is a different entity altogether. I do criticize Christianity and Judaism, because I think that both are based on a false belief. I know that crimes have been committed in the name of each in the past; Christianity more than Judaism. But compared to Islam, they are much more benign. Islam is by far the most violent, and its ideology is based on “do as you will, take what you want, kill as you please, as long as you are submissive to Allah in the end.”

After 9-11 I studied Islam to see if it was compatible with modern secular society and have found it rough going. There are some positive things which Muslims could work on, but because modern Islam has been solidified in the present state for so long, I'm not sure any meaningful change is possible. I believe the concept of "submission" is one of the most destructive elements in modern Islam since it causes people to turn off their minds and allow someone else to control them. They think they are submitting to Allah but there is much evidence they are actually submitting to other humans who use the religion to control them.

The other major stumbling block is their lack of any concept of God's unconditional love. That a major difference between Islam and Christianity. Many Christians have varying understanding of God's love but when I ask them if they believe God loves them unconditionally the more mature ones who I know will usually answer yes.

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On behalf of humanity, I hereby accept the Catholic Church’s apology for its crimes against humanity. You see, I am quite capable of “forgiveness” at times.

It is ironic, but some other Christians haven't been as forgiving as you. Since many of our spiritual ancestors were martyred fighting for religious freedom they have trouble trusting the Catholics. I'm having a debate with a Christian right now who is very anti-Catholic. However, since I know many good Catholic people who love God just as much as I do or may be even more, I can only accept the apologies and move on.

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I don’t refute that there are instances in the scriptures that preach co-existence and peace. But the point is that if there are instances that they call for these violent behaviors, the former does not excuse the latter. If a completely benevolent being occasionally calls for evil deeds, the benevolence of that being comes into question, regardless of all the other times it has called for good things.

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I believe that none of the passages I highlighted from the bible can be interpreted as a call for the Jews to simply defend themselves against subjugation and abuse. They are all offensive calls for violence and genocide, instigated by their God.

It is not my intention to excuse crimes against humanity regardless of who has done them. I believe those passages accurately express the spiritual understanding of the Israelites at that time and probably also that of their neighbors. Those represent the starting point, not the mature faith which took over a thousand years to come into existence. There are moral lessons to be learned by their experiences but to imitate them in genocide is not one of them. Those statements can not be taken as the mature understanding of God's will for his people. Let me give you an example.
Deut 23:3-4
3 No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even down to the tenth generation. 4 For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to pronounce a curse on you.
NIV
Here we find Moabites under a curse unto the tenth generation. Now let's examine the book of Ruth:
Ruth 1:3-5
3 Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
NIV
Ruth was a Moabite woman who was honored with an entire book in the Bible just about her. Now let's look at who her descendants were:
Ruth 4:13-17
13 So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. 14 The women said to Naomi: "Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."
16 Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. 17 The women living there said, "Naomi has a son." And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
NIV
Not only was Ruth a Moabitess honored with her own book, but her great grandson was David the most celebrated king in the Hebrew Bible. His son was Solomon who not only entered the temple but actually built it and dedicated it. To make matters even more interesting, David was the one who was chosen to be the ancestor of the Messiah making the Messiah a descendant of a Moabitess.

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You have raised a very hotly debatable point. Should society ban an idea or religion, because it is deemed too “evil” or “dangerous?” That’s a very good question indeed.
It is the old debate on the importance yet limit of freedom. As you know, “my right to swing my fists ends where your face begins.” So freedom does have a limit, and that limit is where the freedom of another to a happy and free life begins.
I completely understand your position, and a part of me wants to back up your claim. But another part of me thinks it is not that simple, and there will be other ramifications if we simply ban a religion.
Islam is too evil; let’s ban it. Communism is too dangerous; let’s ban it. Satan worshiping is too wicked; let’s ban it. Barney the Dinosaur is too annoying; let’s ban it.
If we ban a whole religion or ideology, a very powerful message will be sent. Today Islam, tomorrow Barney.
And let’s consider what it really means to “ban” a concept. It means that it will not be tolerated to exist in society. To enforce that intolerance, laws will have to be made. And the subsequence of breaking those laws is a punishment – usually incarceration. Are you really prepared to throw someone in jail for saying “I believe in Allah?”

The reason I raised it is because it is such an interesting question upon which our civilization may depend. From the Christian point of view, no one should ever be discriminated against because of their beliefs about God so long as they don't use those beliefs to seriously harm other people. Clearly the jihadiis are intent on harming other people and can not be allowed to practice their brand of religion freely. John Locke has a very interesting article to which I've previously refered which deals with this very issue of how far toleration should go. According to him, toleration should stop when people begin to use religion to harm other people's rights to enjoy their own property and freedom.

When I see a Taliban spokesman showing up at Yale as an honored student of the university, it seems they have the toleration thing backwards. Immigrant are to learn to tolerate our culture, the rest of us don't have to give up ours and learn theirs. It is insane to let a man like this who clearly has a history of supporting violence against Westerners into our country.

Of course, it is clear that the situation in Europe could be resolved very quickly if the indigenous Europeans had the will to. They could simply withdraw all welfare payments to the immigrants until they became employed. That by itself would stop much of the nonsense. In the schools they should begin to teach the philosophical and theological basis for Western Civilization as history, not as a form of proselytizing. Immigrants who want to become citizens in a Western country should know where those freedoms came from.

Finally I think we could seriously consider curtailing immigration from any country which practices religious discrimination unless the immigrant is leaving precisely because of that persecution. In other words we could consider banning Muslims from Saudi Arabia or Pakistan as permanent residents unless their government allows Christians, Jews and Hindus to freely practice their faiths there. This ban could be in place as long as there is any question concerning whether the new immigrants can successfully integrate into our society.

Of course the most important thing is freedom of speech. Probably the biggest enemy to our freedoms are hate crime laws which ban speech which some people regard offensive. For instance, in Australia a Christian Pastor is facing prosecution for telling the truth about Islam and for reading from the Koran because his speech was regarded as hateful. He had emigrated to Australia from Pakistan because of religious persecution because of Islamic intolerance and now he is facing jail time in Australia because he has told the truth about what is happening. Clearly anyone who is actively inciting to violence whether inside a church or in a secular situation would face a similar penalty, not because of religious or racial reasons but because of endangerment to other people's safety.

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Let’s look at the available choices for an explanation here:

1. Yahweh, the infinitely benevolent and powerful God, 3000 years ago had the moral maturity which is below that of this 21st century simple human…..illogical

2. Or, the original creators of Judaism got the concept of God so wrong that it was in fact almost the complete opposite from a moral standpoint….illogical

3. Or, the creators of this religion, which lived in a much more morally primitive era, made up a God which to them made sense, relative to their times. As such, that God appears to be the moral inferior of current man. And as man himself has morally matured through time, his “God” also seems to have morally matured…..hmmmmm…..

I don't think anyone teaches that God has matured, people have. On your second two options I see virtue in them both. I think there is ample evidence that man's concept of God has evolved over time. The spiritual leaders in this spiritual evolution in terms of Western Civilization have been the Jews. I believe history does show clear evolution of human civilization over time accompanies by an evolution of our understanding of God. No one is saying God is evolving, but our understanding of Him has evolved.

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Not making much sense here. If unconditional love is impossible, and if Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves and not unconditionally, and if any other love other than unconditional love is not positive but manipulation, you are really saying that we are not capable of anything positive but just manipulation and that Jesus encourages this path of negativity and manipulation.

What we are talking about is agape love, not ordinary friendship. My understanding of the New Covenant is that God has promised to give us His love. This is not something which comes naturally to the human heart but is a gift from God. The commandment is to love other people as we love ourselves which is an important condition. If we were to love other people more than ourselves, it would be impossible to live. Although imperfect, our agape love towards others should reflect God's unconditional love based on His love for us and for them, not by any personal gain which follows from the interaction. Indeed the truest example of agape love is when someone personally sustains a loss to benefit someone else without any hope of personal compensation.

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So I ask you, have you forgiven Hitler for killing 6 million Jews, and millions of others?

Hating Hitler would not do any good and I don't. There are new challenges to freedom and new Hitlers alive today we have to deal with. I have studied Hitler with interest trying to understand His psyche, but beyond that he is dead and gone and my hating him would change nothing. I believe the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem has spread the Nazi ideology all over the Middle East so in a sense Hitler is still alive in other people. This is the enemy we have to face now.

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If you create an entirely new religion, based on completely different ideas than the current world religions, and proclaimed yourself a prophet in that religion, then I would concede that you have not followed the cultural elites. You would yourself thus become a cultural elite, provided you got enough people to believe you. But as I said before, you cannot follow Christianity yet proclaim that you are not following the cultural or religious elites.

Well if you include Jesus in the cultural elites, I suppose you have a point. Even Jesus's teachings have to be checked against history, reason and personal experience. In reality, in my view religion should be based on a personal relationship with God rather than following other people. According to the New Covenant God can communicate with each of us if we are open to His leading. The teachings in the Bible serve to facilitate that communication.

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To exist is one thing, but to harshly oppress and exterminate others is quite another. Could we excuse Nazi atrocities by saying “well…the Nazis had to exist?”

The Nazis didn't have to commit genocide to exist. As I said before, I'm not excusing crimes against humanity regardless of who did them. On the other hand, almost all groups have crimes in their background. Some groups like the Hindus have lived in one place so long their history fades into the mists of time, but other groups which have a more recent history have done things which are clearly wrong. The lesson I take from these passages is that God loves and forgives our sins whether on a personal level or as a nation.

For example, every one of us who lives in the USA for an extended time has benefitted at the expense of the native Indians but that doesn't make us all bad. Corporately we are all partakers of the good things our previous citizens now dead did and are also partakers in the crimes they committed. There is nothing we can do about history but to record it as accurately as possible and to learn from it. But the message I draw from the books of Joshua and Judges is that God loves and forgives us even when we go astray.

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It is true that history is sometimes told from different viewpoints. Insofar as the interpretations or analyses of events, it can somewhat vary and not be problematic. But in its description of facts and events, there can only be one correct history. If other “viewpoints” differ from actual events, then they are really not history but mythology.

Two people can view exactly the same events and have a different interpretation of them. As I see it, the compilers of Joshua and Judges viewed killing entire populations as a good thing and seemed to notice no moral dilemmas whatsoever. Therefore they didn't give us the additional information which would help us put it into perspective. The only way we have to gain the additional perspective is through archaeology. Is the story myth as in completely untrue, I don't think the evidence would support that conclusion, but there is much left out of the narrative and at least a certain amount of inserted comments by the compilers which show their love of war stories.

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If a society is hedonistic, it is the shortfall of that society’s members and not atheism. Religious societies (including Christian ones) have also been hedonistic and narcissistic at times.

My take on the French Revolution is that these were true believers. I understand Robspierre and his close associates were very much into Rousseau. The French revolution gave us the atheists, pagans, and communists, all struggling for power. Initially there were even Catholic priests in the assembly. What was missing were any Protestant Christians to give balance to the assembly since they had all been killed or exiled long before the revolution. However, the atheists seemed to be the ones who set the tone for the revolution from the beginning. Robspierre who took power later on to try to save the revolution since it appeared to be failing was not an atheist but an anti-Christian pagan who followed Rousseau's blueprint into paganism complete with a goddess of reason and state holidays. As with Rousseau, he believed morals were important for a society, just not Judeo-Christian moral which he rejected. Although they lived in different times and slaughtered a different group of people, I'd say his religious outlook and morality was very similar to Hitler's. He turned against the atheists and killed them along with many other innocent people. Ultimately the French revolution failed to bring about a stable democratic government but has served as the template for many other ideologically driven modern insurgents most of which have failed to bring about just democratic governments just as the French revolution.

The reason why is that it is very difficult to sit down and invent a culture as we have in Judeo-Christian lands which has evolved over thousands of years from scratch I really don’t think it can be done. It is my understanding that because there was no central moral core to the revolution, everyone became a law unto themselves and the entire experiment soon disintegrated into a random group of warring factions.

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Theism has no greater claim to morality than atheism…..I believe I have demonstrated that fact in my prior arguments.

On this we will just have to disagree. My understanding of our discussions is that atheism doesn't provided any moral guidance whatsoever, the idea of a good God does. But we are each entitled to our own opinions.

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This is what I’m talking about when I say that theism actually takes away from the importance of this life, whereas atheism allows one to truly appreciate and savor this life and places all importance on this current life; the only life we really have.

This seems to be a matter for personal preference.

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I appreciate your understanding of the book “Table Talk,” and do not challenge it. You obviously have formed your opinion of Hitler based on this book, and I respect that. All I’m saying is that my opinion of him goes beyond just the text he wrote, and is based more on his actions. And his actions to me indicate a desire for global domination beyond just Eastern Europe.

By this time, whatever relevance this topic has seems to have been passed.

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If you accept as I do that our founders were profoundly religious men who wrote our constitution with the express purpose to protect religious observance and based our democracy on the assumption that people would hold shared moral beliefs based on religion, then your argument is not very convincing. The glue which has held our country together is the shared morality provided by religion. Remove that glue and we become just another failed state.

But I actually don’t accept this statement as you do.

Do you care to argue the opposite? The historical data supporting my argument is strong. Perhaps you would like to show evidence they were all agnostic or atheists? That should be an interesting presentation.

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Religion does have a profound effect on many people, and indeed it cannot be denied. However, where I disagree is in your claim that Christianity is the foundation of western civilization. As I have said before, Christianity has played a big role in western civilization, but it is false to state that Christianity and western civilization are equivalent, or even that the foundation of western civilization is Christianity.

I think much of this statement is what I believe. Christianity is not identical to Western Civilization but it is the religious and moral foundation upon which it is built. There have been inputs from many other civilizations which have been accommodate. The question is whether Western Civilization can survive without Christianity and I believe the answer is no.

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This doesn’t really address my points about the inconsistencies that arise from the concept of an omnipotent and omniscient being. Instead of dealing with these inconsistencies, you invoke God’s claim that “I am that I am.” What does that mean? Does it really tell us anything? That’s really God’s (or rather, the creators of God’s) excuse to not have to make sense, and discourage us from asking questions.

It’s the old “because I said so” phrase I keep hearing coming out of God’s mouth – or rather, the mouths of the people who created God.

Actually I quoted that because I've reached the conclusion that we will not come to the meeting of the minds on this issue. For some reason you don't like my definition of God so I gave you the Biblical one. You seem to prefer Aristotle's definition because you think you can find flaws in it. Since that is not where I'm at, that is a difficult topic to pursue.

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But I don’t discount the effect that Jesus had on humanity. I also don’t discount the effect that Mohammad and his teachings had on humanity. Whether those effects were positive or negative, however, is a whole other matter. And I assure you that mental patients in the Middle East frequently claim to be Ali, or Mohammad, or some other Islamic shmuck. Would you make the same argument regarding Mohammad and Ali?

Definitely, my argument holds there too. I have seen no evidence that any of those great figures in history were schizophrenics or mentally ill.

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Similarly, Jesus claiming to be Jesus did not make him crazy. What made him potentially crazy (and I’m not saying he was) was him claiming to be the son of God, and being in communication with God.

If he actually did make such claims (being the son of God, etc) then he was either a con-man because he was actually of very sound mind but was fooling people, or was indeed delusional and not quite mentally balanced.

Another possibility does exist, however, which I think is just as likely if not more likely. That he himself actually never made such claims, and only preached a philosophy of love and kindness. He was then raised to be “the son of God” after his death by his followers, who wanted to make him out to be larger than what he really was. I’m not sure whether this is true or not, but it is a possibility which I have often pondered.

Yet another possibility is that Jesus himself did never exist, and the idea of Jesus was made up by the “apostles.”

Oh yeah…there’s also one more possibility….that Jesus was in fact the son of God…but since God doesn’t exist, it becomes very difficult to be the son of God.

Clearly if you reject all theism, you reject Jesus' claim also. Since I believe in God, I have every reason to take Jesus' claims seriously and I do.

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When I made that statement, it was actually meant as a compliment, and not meant to be offensive. However, if it bothered you, I retract calling you non-mainstream.

Thank-you for the thought. I was not offended in the least. It doesn't bother me one way or the other whether you consider me mainstream, but I consider myself a conservative Christian.

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I understand that you have chosen to view God as you do because this way he is more attractive, and does not appear to be just an empty shell or statue. That’s fine. In a way, it’s actually natural. You have humanized God in this way, and it becomes easier to relate to him. However, as I have pointed out, if you try to make sense of this God then problems arise.

Furthermore, I think this is yet another example of “Man creating God in his own image.”

Actually I don't see how it is impossible for us to understand God in any other way. That is the limitation of the human existence. What I find enjoyable is to see how Hollywood pictures aliens which are so often very similar to humans or animals.

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So you are saying that God does indeed hand out free passes. I’m sure you must understand that the ramification of a “free pass” is a world without consequences. If anyone can do as he pleases, without having to answer for anything then consequences disappear. And if consequences disappear, how can there be any morality? Along with the consequences, morality gets thrown out the window.

No matter how you look at it, the Christian teaching of grace appears to be a free pass. God forgives you for all your sins and declares you righteous, not because of your own goodness but because of His forgiveness. The only requirement is that you have to accept the gift through faith.

To say that there are no consequences to sin is going further than I would go. I understand the sinners are cast into outer darkness. There is a spiritual consequence to sin. I would not like to be in Hitler's place as he passes through his life review. These spiritual consequence are built into reality itself and are not an arbitrary punishment. It is not a matter of God withdrawing His love but granting people their choices.

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However, this doesn’t mean that the theory of evolution as an explanation of a great part of the biologic world is incorrect. It is simply a fact of nature.

I agree with you here.

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Where is the divine truth, and where is the human error of language and understanding? Can anyone separate the two? It therefore all becomes suspect to error.

What I do is to take the Bible as a whole with special emphasis on Jesus' and his disciple's teachings.

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That’s exactly what has always happened. Each “prophet” gets the local population to believe in him, and eventually that religion gets large enough that it begins to infringe on other religions’ territories, which then causes a fight. All you have to do is to look at history.

To me the test for any prophet is whether the prophet teaches the Good God or not.

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Does it make sense that Eve was made out of Adam’s rib?

Does it make sense that Noah lived to be 950 years old?

Does it make sense that Imam Mahdi has been hiding down a well for centuries?

Does it make sense that God sent his only son to be tortured and killed by man, in order to save mankind? And he sent him via a “virgin birth?” I forgot…Fed Ex wasn’t available back then.

Of those four ideas only one is central to Christian belief. That God's Son came to die to save man. That makes tremendous sense. The other two issues are immaterial.

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This is true. This does reflect a successful society. However, it does not necessarily reflect a moral society. The fact that people wish to emigrate somewhere is mostly a reflection of that society’s economic success. People flocked to ancient Rome for a while because of its economic success. But as you well know, Rome was no example of a moral society.

I don't know a better measure. People vote with their feet. There are many items which factor into a person's decision to relocate to another country. Morality, safety, stability etc are probably just as important as economic success. I'm not sure Rome had a problem with an invasion of people looking for a better life until it was Christian. It was then invaded by Germanic tribes who wanted what the Roman's had but unfortunately severely damaged it in the process. It is probably quite analogous to our illegal aliens now. Also I believe those tribes were driven forward towards Rome by invaders from behind. The whole idea in integrating new immigrants is so the culture survives and there is enough for everyone.

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I’m glad you feel that way. I’m sure you are aware that the vast majority of Christians and the Catholic Church don’t share your views. Christian values (as well as other religions) cause widespread condemnation of homosexuals, and try to prevent them from gaining equal rights, including marriage.

Whatever happened to “equality of man before God?” Are homosexuals not our equals? Do they not deserve equal rights?

I oppose gay marriage. Traditional Western marriage is between one man and one woman, and I see no positive reason that should be changed. The only reason the state has an interest in marriage is for the proper nurturing and integration of children into society which affects everyone. Whatever arrangements two people of the same sex make between themselves is their business and doesn't affect me or anyone else one way or the other, so why should it be any concern of the state? On the other hand, alternative marriage arrangements can severely damage the marriage institution. This is one of the places in which the anti-Christian secularists have done so much damage to our culture. Because the intellectual and moral basis for equality have been discarded, “equality” what ever that means becomes a destructive end in itself without regard to the welfare of the society as a whole.

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Deuteronomy 32: 19-25

All this, because some idiot decided to worship an idol instead of Yahweh.

So when we see this, we are actually focused too closely and are missing the big picture?

Couldn’t someone make the same case for Hitler? “Oh, don’t focus on the minor details of what I said and did…so what if I killed a few people?...look at the big picture….I was planning to build a superb society…blah blah blah”

We have covered this topic above and the post is getting long, so I will skip this one.

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This changes nothing. God is making a “new” covenant with man. So what? It’s still a covenant, which means a contract. God is still indirectly saying “let’s make a deal.” God is making a new contract, because supposedly man kept breaking the old contract so many times that God got frustrated and saw that it wasn’t working out well. A new contract in lieu of an old contract? What’s the difference? It’s still a contract. The terms of the contract are not important. Just that there IS a contract. He still speaks of his laws, but he is just “more confident” this time that man will obey, because supposedly it will be written on man’s mind.

A contract means that there are conditions. Hence, it is impossible for God to love us “unconditionally.” The two premises, of a covenant or contract, and that of unconditional love, are mutually exclusive. The concept of both of them existing is laughable.

I gave you the terms of the New Covenant. Exactly which part of the New Covenant do you maintain is compatible with God's unconditional love?

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And if a society (such as Eastern Europe) turned into a hell hole from which everyone wished to escape, don’t blame atheism. Other factors, such as communism, corruption, dictatorship, and oppression were the underlying reasons. Perhaps you are not aware that Eastern European countries have been and remain some of the most religious Christians. The Russian Orthodoxy retains a great following.

The problems in Eastern Europe are primarily from Communism which is an anti-Christian secularist movement. Russia seems to be experiencing difficulties in moving away from the damage of that ideology. I'm not sure what percentage of the Russians are theists, most were raised atheists. Your point about the Russian Orthodox Church is valid since there seems to be some question whether it has grasped the importance of freedom of religion and freedom of speech yet.

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It’s not just too good to be true; it’s riddled with inconsistency and non-sense.

I'm sure that from your perspective as an atheist that seems to be true.

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An empty tomb? This is your proof that Jesus had a resurrection? You do realize that there are a couple of Pharaohs’ tombs which have also been found to be empty. I’m sure that these Pharaohs were also the sons of God.

I don't think this question was serious since you well know there is no correlation.

We're getting bogged down in detail which has no correlation to the questions concerning theism or atheism so I'd like to summarize my understanding of where we are. On the whole, I really don't see your point. You have been quoting a few of the books of the Bible and asking me for explanations and then you ask essentially the same question again repeatedly. I have answered those questions as accurately as I can but I miss your point how that advances atheism. There are 66 books in the Bible all of which have to be considered in doing good exegesis. But I don't think accurate exegesis is really the point here but I’m at a loss to know exactly what it is. Whether you choose to believe the Bible teaches about God's unconditional love is your own choice. For me my exegesis demonstrating God’s love is not really in question since my understanding of God's love came from the Bible originally and then as I thought about it I realized just how important and logical a concept it really is. So why would you as an atheist try to argue with my Biblical exegesis and to try to prove I'm wrong? What is the meaning of that? Is my idea that the Bible teaches God's unconditional love that upsetting? There are many texts in the Bible which teach God's love, some of which I have quoted. That they are there is undeniable. Quoting from the books written about Israel when they were in their infancy as a nation does not disprove anything about what the Bible teaches a thousand years later in their maturity.

Let me repeat John Locke once again. "If the gospel and the apostles may be credited, no man can be a Christian without charity, and without that faith which works, not by force, but by love." It appears John Locke's understanding of the gospel was very similar to mine. As Christians we obey God through love, not because of fear of punishment.

Every person has the opportunity to exercise free will including the choice to do evil. The fact that God intervenes at times doesn't inhibit people from exercising free will but often enhances it. For instance, Hitler exercised his free will, but was eventually stopped by the Allies who used their free will, chose to fight and die based on their understanding of right and wrong to oppose him. The Allie's intervention did not in any way prevent Hitler from exercising his free will in the least. If God didn't intervene we would all be slaves to the bad god and would have no free will.

What does this have to do with God’s intervention? Did God intervene and save the world from the Nazis, or did the Allies?

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So, because I disagree with you I'm "arrogant?"

I didn’t call you arrogant because we disagree. I called the particular statement you made:

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It is God who makes it possible for us to love others. If you look at real life in pagan or primitive societies, you will find people often don't love their families at all but abuse them.

to be arrogant. Because it’s very arrogant to think that Christians love their families more than non-Christian ones.

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Well, now that you mentioned it, Santa Clause actually did exist. He was a historical figure.

Very funny. But you know I’m not talking about the alleged historical figure behind the myth, but the commonly perceived notion of Santa Claus which exists in current society. You know…the one who lives in the North Pole, has elves working for him, makes toys for all the little Christian kids, and on Christmas Eve crawls down everyone’s chimney to deliver those toys (but only to the good little kids), followed by his timely departure on a flying sled pulled by flying reindeer, one of which has a red bulb for a nose.

Do you believe in this Santa Claus?

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Also, when I said science was not meant to disprove God's existence, you didn't object because of course you know better

Science was never MEANT to disprove God, but like I said, it has done so inadvertently. All the knowledge gained continues to disprove the religiously held dogmas regarding the universe.

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So from my point of view, what we are discussing is not whether the first cause exists beyond the reach of science, but whether the first cause is conscious or not. Since science can not address that issue, we are left with metaphysics and philosophy to address the issue. So exactly what does Santa Clause have to do with the identity of the first cause?

Santa has nothing to do with this “first cause.” My reference to Santa was only in relation to your challenge to disprove the existence of God. I simply eluded to the fact that Santa is similarly disprovable.

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My perception of our discussion and yours are quite different. I have seen you trying very hard to trip me up over and over again which is OK, that is what makes discussions interesting. Perhaps you don't like some of my answers but I haven't liked some of your answers either. I believe I've caught you in logical and factual inconsistencies several times and haven't made a big deal about it, you quietly dropped the subject and I didn't press the issues or bring them up again. From my perspective, the purpose of this discussion is to have fun and learn, not to win.

I am sure you have dropped subjects at least as much, if not more than I. There is nothing wrong with not continuing to go back and forth on the same subject an infinite number of times. I certainly don’t want to do that…do you?

But moving on from a subject does not equate to a logical inconsistency and sweeping an unfavorable subject under the rug. On numerous occasions I have posed issues without a response, or watched you dance around them. But that’s fine. I don’t necessarily equate your lack of a response to your inability to give one, but rather your disinterest or inclination not to give one. And that’s perfectly acceptable.

Like I said, I have yet to hear the illogical and irrational argument against atheism.

Besides, who said anything about winning or losing?

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If you believe in free will, to be logical, you have to explain how a brain made out of atoms which don't have the property of consciousness can be made conscious much less have freedom.

First, I cannot explain the nature of consciousness as the sum of its individual parts (brain cells), because nobody can currently do so. Science simply hasn’t made that discovery yet, and perhaps it never will.

Second, I don’t see why I have to make the above explanation in order to believe in free will.

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As I pointed out earlier, freedom, as I have heard it defined, always means an uncaused cause.

That may be a bit of a narrow way of defining freedom. The way I see freedom is that it presents possibilities for more than just one outcome. In the realm of a thinking creature, that means having choices.

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A major argument against miracles is that they break the chain of cause and effect.

Actually, the usual argument against miracles is that they are always either hoaxes or never took place.

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This statement is exactly why I maintain that decisions about God and religion are all to some extent non rational. If great minds which are all very rational can disagree, then the issue must be beyond the reach of objective reason. In that case it is logically incorrect to say people are "wrong" unless of course you know more than everyone else and can know they are all wrong and you are correct.

People who are usually rational can indeed think and act irrationally at times or in regard to certain subjects. And traditional religion, because of its deeply emotional attachments and the strong need to believe in something, is difficult by many, nay most, to be overcome by rationality and reason.

Furthermore, these great minds were great minds because of their contributions to various different subjects. One who is a genius at physics may not know didley squat about history or religion. One who is very knowledgeable regarding law or administration may not know jack about biology or philosophy.

And by agreeing with and following these great minds, are you not yourself following the cultural elites?

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Thought, logic and reason are all good things and I am completely for using them as much as possible, but they won't encompass all reality. Logic always begins from axioms which themselves are unproven.

I’m not sure where you’re trying to go with this. Is logic to be occasionally set aside during discussions? Like I said before, if we try to ignore logic, the foundation of any argument and discussion falls apart and the whole thing becomes worthless.

You are trying to challenge the whole notion of what a “proof” really entails. By your argument, nothing is provable. I don’t buy that, nor do I buy Descartes’ arguments.

Let me tell you what proof is:

Dictionary:

“The validation of a proposition by application of specified rules, as of induction or deduction, to assumptions, axioms, and sequentially derived conclusions
Convincing or persuasive demonstration
Determination of the quality of something by testing; trial”

Proof is acceptance of a fact based upon the preponderance of evidence, and reaffirmed by tests and trials. This is what’s acceptable as proof, and all I’m talking about when I ask for in our discussion of God.

As I have shown, the preponderance of the evidence points to the non-existence of God. Theists cannot challenge the evidence itself, so instead challenge the methodology which we use to draw our conclusions. Why not just say nothing is real, this is all an illusion, so let’s just pack up and go home?

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Christianity never protected Europe. It was at times used as a rallying tool for those who wished to protect Europe, but it never directly protected Europe. In fact, looking at history illustrates how Christianity has actually been a source of corruption and decay in Europe.

I don’t believe that Europe is currently defenseless against Islam. It does have quite a challenge ahead of it though. The last place it needs to look towards to meet that challenge is Christianity. To battle fire with fire will result in yet another burning of Europe.

That is your opinion which you are entitled to, but you have offered no evidence to support your argument. On the other hand, I have offered quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.

You are correct in that this is my opinion; an opinion based on history. Yours is also an opinion; an opinion based on history, and nothing more.

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God loves people unconditionally, but He deals with people differently depending upon where they are spiritually and intellectually.

This sentence is contradictory. If he loves everyone unconditionally, he must love us all equally, and treat us all equally. Did you not agree with this previously? But if he also deals with us differently as you claim, that means he is treating us differently.

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The fact that later generations didn't go through and smooth the writings off and didn't try to reconcile contradictions is strong evidence of just how much they treasured and protected the Bible.

It also is a demonstration that this religion is filled with contradictions, which logically means that the religion is false.

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As I pointed out, there is much evidence in the Hebrew scriptures which support God's infinite love. Although the Israelites failed many times and in many ways, God continued to love them.

But, God also got furiously angered by them and repeatedly unleashed or threatened to unleash his wrath upon them.

Your examples of God’s love in the scriptures is duly noted and appreciated. However, the fact that he acted lovey dovey sometimes, yet threatened and terrorized his subjects at other times does not even things out. His occasional malicious nature cannot be hidden or excused because of his occasional loving nature.

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After 9-11 I studied Islam to see if it was compatible with modern secular society and have found it rough going. There are some positive things which Muslims could work on, but because modern Islam has been solidified in the present state for so long, I'm not sure any meaningful change is possible. I believe the concept of "submission" is one of the most destructive elements in modern Islam since it causes people to turn off their minds and allow someone else to control them. They think they are submitting to Allah but there is much evidence they are actually submitting to other humans who use the religion to control them.

Good analysis. I agree with you.

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Many Christians have varying understanding of God's love but when I ask them if they believe God loves them unconditionally the more mature ones who I know will usually answer yes.

What makes them more mature? The fact that they agree with you?

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It is ironic, but some other Christians haven't been as forgiving as you. Since many of our spiritual ancestors were martyred fighting for religious freedom they have trouble trusting the Catholics. I'm having a debate with a Christian right now who is very anti-Catholic. However, since I know many good Catholic people who love God just as much as I do or may be even more, I can only accept the apologies and move on.

This is what I mean when I say that religion gives everyone another reason to fight and die. I have no religion (in the traditional sense), and so I have no ideology that makes me want to oppose other religions. I have no Moslem thought that makes me want to kill Jews. I have no Protestant convictions which make me suspicious of Catholics, etc

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It is not my intention to excuse crimes against humanity regardless of who has done them. I believe those passages accurately express the spiritual understanding of the Israelites at that time and probably also that of their neighbors. Those represent the starting point, not the mature faith which took over a thousand years to come into existence. There are moral lessons to be learned by their experiences but to imitate them in genocide is not one of them. Those statements can not be taken as the mature understanding of God's will for his people. Let me give you an example.
Deut 23:3-4
3 No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even down to the tenth generation. 4 For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to pronounce a curse on you.
NIV
Here we find Moabites under a curse unto the tenth generation. Now let's examine the book of Ruth:
Ruth 1:3-5
3 Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
NIV
Ruth was a Moabite woman who was honored with an entire book in the Bible just about her. Now let's look at who her descendants were:
Ruth 4:13-17
13 So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. 14 The women said to Naomi: "Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."
16 Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. 17 The women living there said, "Naomi has a son." And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
NIV
Not only was Ruth a Moabitess honored with her own book, but her great grandson was David the most celebrated king in the Hebrew Bible. His son was Solomon who not only entered the temple but actually built it and dedicated it. To make matters even more interesting, David was the one who was chosen to be the ancestor of the Messiah making the Messiah a descendant of a Moabitess.

Where is the relevance of these passages to my statement regarding God’s vicious nature and incitement to violence?

Also, you cite an example of

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Here we find Moabites under a curse unto the tenth generation.

How unfair of this God, to punish ten generations yet unborn because of the alleged sins of a an earlier generation of Moabites. Is this a fair God? An all loving God?

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The reason I raised it is because it is such an interesting question upon which our civilization may depend. From the Christian point of view, no one should ever be discriminated against because of their beliefs about God so long as they don't use those beliefs to seriously harm other people. Clearly the jihadiis are intent on harming other people and can not be allowed to practice their brand of religion freely. John Locke has a very interesting article to which I've previously refered which deals with this very issue of how far toleration should go. According to him, toleration should stop when people begin to use religion to harm other people's rights to enjoy their own property and freedom.

I’m all for that.

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When I see a Taliban spokesman showing up at Yale as an honored student of the university, it seems they have the toleration thing backwards. Immigrant are to learn to tolerate our culture, the rest of us don't have to give up ours and learn theirs. It is insane to let a man like this who clearly has a history of supporting violence against Westerners into our country.

Amen to that.

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Of course, it is clear that the situation in Europe could be resolved very quickly if the indigenous Europeans had the will to. They could simply withdraw all welfare payments to the immigrants until they became employed. That by itself would stop much of the nonsense. In the schools they should begin to teach the philosophical and theological basis for Western Civilization as history, not as a form of proselytizing. Immigrants who want to become citizens in a Western country should know where those freedoms came from.

I’m with you on this one too. Except about the welfare part. That may not be a wise political move. It may cause an increased drive to crime, as well as act as a catalyst for another uprising.

Instead, the biggest factor they need to focus upon is controlling immigration. If I was them (Europeans), I would have immediately placed an almost complete block to any more immigration from muslim countries, at least until the situation there stabilizes, which is unlikely to happen anytime soon. These guys are trying to destroy Europe from the inside. Why should Europeans let any more of them in? What they do with the ones who are already there though, is a different and more complicated matter.

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Finally I think we could seriously consider curtailing immigration from any country which practices religious discrimination unless the immigrant is leaving precisely because of that persecution. In other words we could consider banning Muslims from Saudi Arabia or Pakistan as permanent residents unless their government allows Christians, Jews and Hindus to freely practice their faiths there. This ban could be in place as long as there is any question concerning whether the new immigrants can successfully integrate into our society.

Although I agree with curtailing and almost grinding down immigration, I don’t agree with how you are framing it. To target the individual citizens of a country because of that country’s governmental policies is unfair. Iran’s government is the worst in the world. Should Iranians, many of whom are the victims of their own government be targeted and denied permanent residency here?

But as far as the issue of assessing those immigrants’ willingness and ability to integrate successfully, I agree. If they cannot or will not, immigration from those particular countries / backgrounds should be halted.

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I don't think anyone teaches that God has matured, people have. On your second two options I see virtue in them both. I think there is ample evidence that man's concept of God has evolved over time. The spiritual leaders in this spiritual evolution in terms of Western Civilization have been the Jews. I believe history does show clear evolution of human civilization over time accompanies by an evolution of our understanding of God. No one is saying God is evolving, but our understanding of Him has evolved.

Like I said before, I may buy this if it showed an evolution from a lower morality to a higher morality. But the Hebrew scriptures are not just filled with a lower state of morality, but the exact opposite of any shred of morality.

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What we are talking about is agape love, not ordinary friendship. My understanding of the New Covenant is that God has promised to give us His love. This is not something which comes naturally to the human heart but is a gift from God. The commandment is to love other people as we love ourselves which is an important condition. If we were to love other people more than ourselves, it would be impossible to live. Although imperfect, our agape love towards others should reflect God's unconditional love based on His love for us and for them, not by any personal gain which follows from the interaction. Indeed the truest example of agape love is when someone personally sustains a loss to benefit someone else without any hope of personal compensation.

I’m quite clear on what you mean by “agape love,” and that you mean agape love when you say love.

To love others as we would ourselves sounds great. I have no problem with that.

My point has to do with unconditional love, as you probably know by now. On many levels I have shown that unconditional love cannot exist, because if it did we would be living in a world without any consequences. Whether that unconditional love is human to human, or God to human, or whatever else. Unconditional love is a myth, because if it were true then morality and consequences get thrown out.

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Hating Hitler would not do any good and I don't. There are new challenges to freedom and new Hitlers alive today we have to deal with. I have studied Hitler with interest trying to understand His psyche, but beyond that he is dead and gone and my hating him would change nothing.

It’s good that you don’t hate him. But I didn’t ask if you hated him; I asked if you had forgiven him. I’m sure you know there’s a big difference there.

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Well if you include Jesus in the cultural elites, I suppose you have a point.

Of course Jesus must be considered as a cultural elite. He is no exception. Assuming of course that he existed, and said what his apostles said he said.

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Even Jesus's teachings have to be checked against history, reason and personal experience.

I’m curious. What if Jesus’ teachings were not consistent with reason and/or history? What would be your opinion of his teachings?

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The Nazis didn't have to commit genocide to exist. As I said before, I'm not excusing crimes against humanity regardless of who did them.

No, they sure did not. I used this example because your response to the fact that the Hebrews committed genocide was “because they had to exist in order to be God’s chosen people.” My point was exactly that one does not have to commit genocide in order to exist.

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On the other hand, almost all groups have crimes in their background.

This is very true. No nation is without a period of historical shame due to immorality and unjustified aggression.

But I wasn’t trying to pick on the Jews per say. I was discussing their God, and how he fits into the picture. It is the role that this God allegedly played during that particular time in the Jews’ past. It is how this supposedly infinitely moral God fits into this picture of decadence that I am talking about. During this discussion, God is on trial for me, not the nation of Israel.

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For example, every one of us who lives in the USA for an extended time has benefitted at the expense of the native Indians but that doesn't make us all bad. Corporately we are all partakers of the good things our previous citizens now dead did and are also partakers in the crimes they committed.

True…the native Americans got really shafted. That and slavery are the two biggest blemishes on American history.

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Two people can view exactly the same events and have a different interpretation of them. As I see it, the compilers of Joshua and Judges viewed killing entire populations as a good thing and seemed to notice no moral dilemmas whatsoever. Therefore they didn't give us the additional information which would help us put it into perspective. The only way we have to gain the additional perspective is through archaeology. Is the story myth as in completely untrue, I don't think the evidence would support that conclusion, but there is much left out of the narrative and at least a certain amount of inserted comments by the compilers which show their love of war stories.

What do you expect archaeology to accomplish in the context of the violence in the scriptures? Will it show that it didn’t exist, thereby vindicating the religion but showing that it was myth? Or will it confirm it, thereby showing that the religion was based on true events but was immoral?

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The reason why is that it is very difficult to sit down and invent a culture as we have in Judeo-Christian lands which has evolved over thousands of years from scratch I really don’t think it can be done. It is my understanding that because there was no central moral core to the revolution, everyone became a law unto themselves and the entire experiment soon disintegrated into a random group of warring factions.

What you seem to be missing is that a new culture does not have to invented from scratch to replace theism. The culture is already there. Much of the values are already there. And like I have repeatedly pointed out, all of civilization is not simply Judeo-Christianity. The biggest core of civilization is there, and can survive without Christianity.

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On this we will just have to disagree. My understanding of our discussions is that atheism doesn't provided any moral guidance whatsoever, the idea of a good God does. But we are each entitled to our own opinions.

Yes, we will definitely have to disagree on this one.

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If you accept as I do that our founders were profoundly religious men who wrote our constitution with the express purpose to protect religious observance and based our democracy on the assumption that people would hold shared moral beliefs based on religion, then your argument is not very convincing. The glue which has held our country together is the shared morality provided by religion. Remove that glue and we become just another failed state.

But I actually don’t accept this statement as you do.

Do you care to argue the opposite? The historical data supporting my argument is strong. Perhaps you would like to show evidence they were all agnostic or atheists? That should be an interesting presentation.

I don’t intend to make any presentation of the sort. I never claimed that they were atheists. What I deny is that they based our constitution on their religion. A person can have certain religious convictions without necessarily allowing those convictions to dictate to him the way he sets up a government.

However, here is an interesting article by the Quartz Hill School of Theology, which is obviously a Christian school of theology. Please keep in mind that an atheist did not write the following article, but in fact a Christian professor. The original article is in bold.

Many well-meaning Christians argue that the United States was founded by Christian men on Christian principles. Although well-intentioned, such sentiment is unfounded. The men who lead the United States in its revolution against England, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and put together the Constitution were not Christians by any stretch of the imagination.

Why do some Christians imagine these men are Christians? Besides a desperate desire that it should be so, in a selective examination of their writings, one can discover positive statements about God and/or Christianity. However, merely believing in God does not make a person a Christian. The Bible says that "the fool says in his heart, there is no God." Our founding fathers were not fools. But the Bible also says "You say you believe in God. Good. The demons also believe and tremble."

Merely believing in God is insufficient evidence for demonstrating either Christian principles or that a person is a Christian.

Perhaps, to start, it might be beneficial to remind ourselves of what a Christian might be: it is a person who has acknowledged his or her sinfulness, responded in faith to the person of Jesus Christ as the only one who can redeem him, and by so doing been given the Holy Spirit.

The early church summarized the Christian message in six points:
1. Jesus came from God.
2. You killed him.
3. He rose again on the third day.
4. He sent the Holy Spirit
5. Repent and be baptized.
6. He's coming back.

An individual who would not acknowledge this much of the Christian message could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be called a Christian. The founding fathers of this country did not acknowledge this message. In fact, they denied it.

Founders of the American Revolution

Thomas Jefferson created his own version of the gospels; he was uncomfortable with any reference to miracles, so with two copies of the New Testament, he cut and pasted them together, excising all references to miracles, from turning water to wine, to the resurrection.

There has certainly never been a shortage of boldness in the history of biblical scholarship during the past two centuries, but for sheer audacity Thomas Jefferson's two redactions of the Gospels stand out even in that company. It is still a bit overwhelming to contemplate the sangfroid exhibited by the third president of the United States as, razor in hand, he sat editing the Gospels during February 1804, on (as he himself says) "2. or 3. nights only at Washington, after getting thro' the evening task of reading the letters and papers of the day." He was apparently quite sure that he could tell what was genuine and what was not in the transmitted text of the New Testament...(Thomas Jefferson. The Jefferson Bible; Jefferson and his Contemporaries, an afterward by Jaroslav Pelikan, Boston: Beacon Press, 1989, p. 149. Click to go to a copy of The Jefferson Bible).

In his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson wrote:

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury to my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. (Dumas Malon, Jefferson The President: First Term 1801-1805. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1970, p. 191)

Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer whose manifestoes encouraged the faltering spirits of the country and aided materially in winning the War of Independence. But he was a Deist:

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. (Richard Emery Roberts, ed. "Excerpts from The Age of Reason". Selected Writings of Thomas Paine. New York: Everbody's Vacation Publishing Co., 1945, p. 362)

Regarding the New Testament, he wrote that:

I hold [it] to be fabulous and have shown [it] to be false...(Roberts, p. 375)

About the afterlife, he wrote:

I do not believe because a man and a woman make a child that it imposes on the Creator the unavoidable obligation of keeping the being so made in eternal existance hereafter. It is in His power to do so, or not to do so, and it is not in my power to decide which He will do. (Roberts, p. 375)

John Adams, the second U.S. President rejected the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and became a Unitarian. It was during Adams' presidency that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Tripoli, which states in Article XI that:

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion - as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arrising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. (Charles I. Bevans, ed. Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America 1776-1949. Vol. 11: Philippines-United Arab Republic. Washington D.C.: Department of State Publications, 1974, p. 1072).

This treaty with the Islamic state of Tripoli had been written and concluded by Joel Barlow during Washington's Administration. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty on June 7, 1797; President Adams signed it on June 10, 1797 and it was first published in the Session Laws of the Fifth Congress, first session in 1797. Quite clearly, then, at this very early stage of the American Republic, the U.S. government did not consider the United States a Christian nation.

Benjamin Franklin, the delegate to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention. He has frequently been used as a source for positive "God" talk. It is often noted that Franklin made a motion at the Constitutional convention that they should bring in a clergyman to pray for their deliberations:

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when present to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?....I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men. (Catherine Drinker Bowen. Miracle at Phaladelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787. New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, 1966, pp. 125-126)

It is rarely noted that Franklin presented his motion after "four or five weeks" of deliberation, during which they had never once opened in prayer. More significantly, it is never mentioned that Franklin's motion was voted down! Fine Christians, these founding fathers. Furthermore, the context is usually ignored, too. He made the motion during an especially trying week of serious disagreement, when the convention was in danger of breaking up. Cathrine Drinker Bowen comments:

Yet whether the Doctor had spoken from policy or from faith, his suggestion had been salutary, calling an assembly of doubting minds to a realization that destiny herself sat as guest and witness in this room. Franklin had made solemn reminder that a republic of thirteen united states - venture novel and daring - could not be achieved without mutual sacrifice and a summoning up of men's best, most difficult and most creative efforts. (Bowen, p. 127)

About March 1, 1790, he wrote the following in a letter to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale, who had asked him his views on religion. His answer would indicate that he remained a Deist, not a Christian, to the end:

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and I think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble...." (Carl Van Doren. Benjamin Franklin. New York: The Viking Press, 1938, p. 777.)

He died just over a month later on April 17.

Deism

Certainly it is generally the case that these people believed in God, but it was not the God of Christianity. Deism began in the eighteenth century and was very popular in America. According to the dictionary, it was "a system of thought advocating natural religion based on human reason rather than revelation." Jefferson wrote that the religious doctrines of Jesus that he accepted, and which he regarded as consistent with his deistic perspective were three:

1. that there is one God, and he all-perfect:
2. that there is a future state of rewards and punishments
3. that to love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself, is the sum of religion.

Why do Christians want the founding fathers to be Christians?

Is it because they wish the best for these people?

Hardly.

It is because they hope that by demonstrating they were Christians, they can justify their political agenda. Rather than wanting something new (the injection of Christianity into government) they seek to restore something they imagine has been lost.

Reality: nothing has been lost. It wasn't there to start with. Therefore the whole concept of "taking back America" is a lie. America was never Christian.

Recent Misinformation on the Concept of Separation of Church and State

Some Christians are currently arguing that the concept of separating church and state was not in the minds of the founding fathers, and that it is a recent and pernicious doctrine that is the result of Supreme Court decisions in the 1950's and 60s.

This simply isn't true.

Separation of church and state is not something the Supreme Court invented in the 1950's and 60's. The phrase itself appears in a letter from President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, on Jan 1, 1802.

The Baptist Association had written to President Jefferson regarding a "rumor that a particular denomination was soon to be recognized as the national denomination." Jefferson responded to calm their fears by assuring them that the federal government would not establish any single denomination of Christianity as the National denomination. He wrote: "The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between Church and State."

Notice the phrasing in the U.S. Constitution, Article VI, paragraph 3:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. (emphasis added)

The concept of the separation of church and state appears in the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message (a revision of an earlier statement where it also appears) adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention:

God alone is Lord of the conscience, and He has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are contrary to His Word or not contained in it. Church and state should be separate. The state owes to every church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. In providing for such freedom no ecclesiastical group or denomination should be favored by the state more than others. Civil government being ordained of God, it is the duty of Christians to render loyal obedience thereto in all things not contrary to the revealed will of God. The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work. The gospel of Christ contemplates spiritual means alone for the pursuit of its ends. The state has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions of any kind. The state has no right to impose taxes for the support of any form of religion. A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal, and this implies the right of free and unhindered access to God on the part of all men, and the right to form and propagate opinions in the sphere of religion without interference by the civil power. (emphasis added).

Look at what Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, had to say about religious freedom in the 17th century. He was a Baptist persecuted for his faith who argued for the separation of church and state nearly a hundred fifty years before Jefferson.

The Church and State need not be, Williams insisted, inextricably linked: 'A Pagan or Antichristian Pilot may be as skillful to carry the Ship to its desired Port, as any Christian Mariner or Pilot in the World, and may perform that work with as much safety and speed.' 'God requireth not an Uniformity of Religion to be inacted and inforced in any Civill State,' he declared. Rather, the tares in the field of Christian grain must be left alone; let man hold whatever religious opinions he chooses provided he does not 'actually disturb civil peace,' ran a provision of the Rhode Island Charter of 1663; let civil government be based on the consent of the governed. 'The Soveraigne, originall, and foundation of civil power lies in the People,' Williams insisted. They 'may erect and establish what forme of Government seemes to them most meete for their Civill condition.'

William's plea for Separation of Church and State stemmed far less, Harold Laski writes, from tender concern for men's consciences than from 'a fear that their unity meant the government of the Church by civil men and thus a threat to its purity.' Popular control of the Church through elected magistrates Williams thought evil since it gave the Church 'to Satan himself, by whom all peoples natural are guided.' The precise intention of Scripture could not be ascertained, he believed, with the icy certainty claimed by the New England clergy. He wanted Church and State separated so the Church would not be corrupted by the State. Thomas Jefferson entertained the opposite conviction, fearing that the State would become contaminated by the Church. (Alpheus Thomas Mason. Free Government in the Making: Readings in American Political Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 55)

In his tract on the topic of religious toleration Williams madesome important points:

...Fourthly. The doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience, is proved guilty of all the blood of the souls crying for vengeance under the altar.

Fifthly. All civil states, with their officers of justice, in their respective constitutions and administrations, are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual, or Christian, state and worship.

Sixthly. It is the will and command of God that, since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus, a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consciences and worships be granted to all men in all nations and countries: and they are only to be fought against with that sword which is only, in soul matters, able to conquer: to wit, the sword of God's Spirit, the word of God.

Seventhly. The state of the land of Israel, the kings and people thereof, in peace and war, is proved figurative and ceremonial, and no pattern nor precedent for any kingdom or civil state in the world to follow.

Eighthly. God requireth not an uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity, sooner or later, is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls.

Ninthly. In holding an enforced uniformity of religion in a civil state, we must necessarily disclaim our desires and hopes of the Jews' conversion to Christ.

Tenthly. An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.

Eleventhly. The permission of other consciences and worships than a state professeth, only can, according to God, procure a firm and lasting peace; good assurance being taken, according to the wisdom of the civil state, for uniformity of civil obedience from all sorts.

Twelfthly. Lastly, true civility and Christianity may both flourish in a state or kingdom, notwithstanding the permission of divers and contrary consciences, either of Jew or Gentile... (Roger Williams. The Bloudy Teneent of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience Discussed, 1644. excerpted from A.T. Mason. Free Government in the Making. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 64)

Notice what Ulysses S. Grant said in his seventh annual address (State of the Union address) to the Congress, December 7, 1875:

As this will be the last annual message which I shall have the honor of transmitting to Congress before my successor is chosen, I will repeat or recapitulate the questions which I deem of vital importance which may be legislated upon and settled at this session:

First. That the States shall be required to afford the opportunity of a good common-school education to every child within their limits.

Second. No sectarian tenets shall ever be taught in any school supported in whole or in part by the State, nation, or by the proceeds of any tax levied upon any community. Make education compulsory so far as to deprive all persons who can not read and write from becoming voters after the year 1890, disfranchising none, however, on grounds of illiteracy who may be voters at the time this amendment takes effect.

Third. Declare church and state forever separate and distinct, but each free within their proper spheres; and that all church property shall bear its own proportion of taxation (emphasis added). (A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Vol. X. New York: Bureau of National Literature, Inc., 1897, p. 4310)

Here is a quotation from the Encyclopedic Index of A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, published in 1917:

Religious Freedom. - The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (q.v.) requires that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Religious freedom doubtless had its greatest inspiration from James Madison while he was in the Virginia Legislature. An attempt was made to levy a tax upon the people of that state "for the support of teachers of the Christian religion." Madison wrote what he called a "Memorial and Remonstrance," in which he appealed to the people against the evil tendency of such a precedent, and which convinced people that Madison was right. A bill was passed providing "that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever * * * nor shall suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and, by argument, maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." The religious test to which many of the states put their office-holders were gradually abandoned, and the final separation of church and state in America came in 1833, when Massachusetts discontinued the custom of paying preachers (emphasis added).(A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. XX. New York: Bureau of National Literature, Inc., 1917).

It should be clear, from these quotations, that the concept of separating church and state is hardly of recent invention in the United States, since we see it as far back as at least 1644. It cannot seriously be argued that it sprang as a result of weird ideas in the 1950's and 60's. In point of fact, the decisions rendered by the Supreme Court at that time on school prayer are entirely consistent with the general thrust of U.S. history.

If this is a "Christian" nation, then why did Jefferson write what he did to a group of Baptists? Shouldn't he instead of said that they had something to worry about? If the concept of separating church and state were a recent idea, then why did Jefferson himself use it, one of the founding fathers and author of the Declaration of Independence?

I think it is a big surprise to the Jewish people who have been living here for longer than my ancestors (who only got here in the middle of the 19th century) to think that this is a "Christian" nation. If it were "Christian" then there would be religious requirements to be a part of it and to participate in the public arena. If this were a Christian nation, then why are so few Americans Christians? Even the most optimistic Gallup pole shows that barely 1/3 of the U.S. population claims to be "born again". Interestingly, that's up considerably since the time of the nation's founding, when barely ten percent, if that, claimed intense religious affiliation.

I believe that those who talk about "restoring" prayer to the public school have a misunderstanding of the Supreme Court ruling and have failed to carefully think through their position. The Supreme Court decided in 1962 that for the school administrators to write prayers and read them over the intercoms to the students was wrong. It is hard for me to figure out how anyone in their right mind would think it's a good idea for the state to compose prayers and force them on people.

So why would you want to "restore" government sponsored religiosity? Students and faculty and other employees are free to pray for themselves if they want; that has never been a problem (admittedly, some examples of overzealous administrators who didn't understand the issue, who tried to stop individuals from exercising their religious beliefs, can doubtless be found; but that is the exception, not the rule. That there are murderers is not proof that murder is legal.).

As a Baptist, I frankly would be bothered by a Moslem or a Hindu writing a prayer for my child. I no more want them imposing their religious views on me and mine than they would want me to impose my Baptist beliefs on them. And what about the agnostics and atheists? They no more wish to be inundated by religious concepts in school than I would like to have my children inundated by their beliefs (or lack thereof).

The attempt in the public arena is toward neutrality; certainly it is a tough ideal to reach, and certainly there are a lot of mistakes made on all sides. Certainly, too, in the past there has been a lot of inconsistency in these ideals. But the ideal remains nevertheless.

The history of the U.S. has been one of lofty ideals rarely achieved; our shame is that we so rarely reach what we proclaim: freedom, equality, and the like. But our pride is that, unlike so many before, at least we have ideals and we're trying, how often unsuccessfully, by fits and starts, to reach them. Most of the political disagreements between the parties is not so much over the goals (both Democrats and Republicans want a free, prosperous, safe and happy society), but over the methods to reach those goals. Demonizing the opposition is not reasonable, and both parties are guilty of this (Democrats tend to turn Republicans into Fascists and Republicans tend to turn Democrats into Communists; neither caricature is accurate, appropriate or dignified).
The American Revolution, at its Foundation, was Unscriptural

At its foundation, our American revolution was unscriptural. Therefore I have a hard time seeing how our government could have been founded on Christian principles, when its very founding violated one:

Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. (1 Peter 2:13-14)

No matter how you cut it, the founding fathers were revolting against the King of England. It should be remembered that Peter wrote these words while Israel was suffering under the domination of government far more oppressive than England ever was. In fact, compared to current taxes, our forefathers had nothing to complain about.

What Peter wrote seems perfectly clear and unambiguous; furthermore, it is consistent with what Jesus said about his kingdom not being a part of this world (John 18:23 and 36).

As a Christian, it would be very difficult to justify armed revolt against any ruler. Passive resistance to injustice and evil, as embodied in the concept of civil disobedience, however, does have Scriptural precedent (as for instance in the case of the early Christians described in Acts 5:28-29:

"We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name," he said. "Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood."

Peter and the other apostles replied: "We must obey God rather than men!" (see also Acts 4:18-20)

Civil disobedience means obeying a higher, moral law, but willingly suffering the consequences of your actions and submitting to the authority of those in power to arrest or even kill you for your disobedience. Peter and the others were arrested, and many of them were ultimately martyred. But they never participated in violent protest, nor did they resist those in authority by violence.

Conclusion

Certainly many of the early immigrants to the New World came for religious reasons - often to escape persecution. However, they were not interested in religious freedom for anyone other than themselves, and often turned around and persecuted others who had slightly different viewpoints.

As Pastor Richard T. Zuelch pointed out in his letter to the Los Angeles Times on August 14, 1995:

Gordon S. Wood, in his 1992 book, "The Radicalism of the American Revolution," states that, by the 1790's only about 10% of the American population regularly attended religious services - to quote just one statistic. Not exactly an indication of a wholehearted national commitment to Christianity!

It is a matter of simple historical fact that the United States was not founded as, nor was it ever intended to be, a Christian nation. That there were strong, long-lasting Christian influences involved in the nation's earliest history, due to the Puritan settlements and those of other religious persons escaping European persecution, cannot be denied. But that is a long way from saying that colonial leaders, by the time of the outbreak of the Revolution, were intending to form a nation founded on specifically Christian principles and doctrine.

We Christians do ourselves no favor by bending history to suit our prejudices or to accommodate wishful thinking. Rather than continue to cling to a "Moral Majority"-style fantasy that says America is a Christian nation that needs to be "taken back" from secular unbelief (we can't "take back" what we never had), it would be much healthier for us Christians to face reality, holding to what Jesus himself said in the Gospels: that Christians should never be surprised at the hostility with which the gospel would be greeted by the world, because most people would fail to believe in him, thereby strongly implying that, in every age and country, Christianity would always be a minority faith. (Rev. Richard T. Zuelch, Letter to the Editor, Los Angeles Times, August 1995)

The United States is not, by any stretch of the imagination a Christian nation today, nor has it ever been, nor was it ever intended to be. The Religious right (or left) would do well to stop looking for the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth.

The editor of Quartz Hill Journal of Theology and Academic Vice President of Quartz Hill School of Theology. He also serves as the School's Professor of Bible and Biblical Languages.
He is a graduate of Los Angeles Baptist College with a B.A. (Summa Cum Laude) in history and a minor in Bible; he has a M.A. in Semitic Languages from UCLA (in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures) where he has completed the course work for a Ph.D. in the same subject.

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The question is whether Western Civilization can survive without Christianity and I believe the answer is no.

And I absolutely believe the answer is yes. Again, this is a matter of opinion, and we each obviously hold a very different opinion.

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Actually I quoted that because I've reached the conclusion that we will not come to the meeting of the minds on this issue. For some reason you don't like my definition of God so I gave you the Biblical one. You seem to prefer Aristotle's definition because you think you can find flaws in it. Since that is not where I'm at, that is a difficult topic to pursue.

You make it sound as if I’m trying to build a trap and look for the first God that falls into it. I assure you I have done no such thing. It is not for me to “like” or “dislike” any of the definitions of God, whether they be yours, Aristotle’s, or the bible’s. But I feel quite obliged to point out the flaws with each, or all.

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No matter how you look at it, the Christian teaching of grace appears to be a free pass. God forgives you for all your sins and declares you righteous, not because of your own goodness but because of His forgiveness. The only requirement is that you have to accept the gift through faith.

To say that there are no consequences to sin is going further than I would go. I understand the sinners are cast into outer darkness. There is a spiritual consequence to sin. I would not like to be in Hitler's place as he passes through his life review. These spiritual consequence are built into reality itself and are not an arbitrary punishment. It is not a matter of God withdrawing His love but granting people their choices.

How does this make sense? You say that God forgives one for all his sins and declares him righteous. But then, the person still goes to hell (your definition of it – outer darkness). What kind of forgiveness is that?

That’s similar to a Clint Eastwood forgiveness, who forgives the bad guy right before he unloads lead into him from his Magnum pistol.

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That’s exactly what has always happened. Each “prophet” gets the local population to believe in him, and eventually that religion gets large enough that it begins to infringe on other religions’ territories, which then causes a fight. All you have to do is to look at history.

To me the test for any prophet is whether the prophet teaches the Good God or not.

Interesting. What if your concept of God has been incorrect up until now, and the new prophet has the correct concept? How would you know whether he is for real or full of himself? Were not all prophets initially thought of as false and ignored?

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I'm not sure Rome had a problem with an invasion of people looking for a better life until it was Christian. It was then invaded by Germanic tribes who wanted what the Roman's had but unfortunately severely damaged it in the process.

Rome’s invasion had nothing to do with Christianity, I don’t think. It occurred because of pressures from nomadic tribes and because Rome was greatly weakened and in a state of decline.

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I oppose gay marriage. Traditional Western marriage is between one man and one woman, and I see no positive reason that should be changed. The only reason the state has an interest in marriage is for the proper nurturing and integration of children into society which affects everyone. Whatever arrangements two people of the same sex make between themselves is their business and doesn't affect me or anyone else one way or the other, so why should it be any concern of the state? On the other hand, alternative marriage arrangements can severely damage the marriage institution. This is one of the places in which the anti-Christian secularists have done so much damage to our culture. Because the intellectual and moral basis for equality have been discarded, “equality” what ever that means becomes a destructive end in itself without regard to the welfare of the society as a whole.

The “positive reason why that should be changed” is that homosexuals are people too, and deserve the same pursuit of happiness that you and I are entitled to. They deserve to share their lives with their loved ones in the same way that you and I share ours with our loved ones.

You say you are not concerned about the arrangements between two consenting adults, and the state should not care either. Yet, by denying them this right, those who oppose gay marriage are making it their business, and are making the state make it its business.

How do alternative marriage arrangements damage the institution of marriage? Is your marriage to your wife somehow damaged if two homosexuals down the street are also married?

Furthermore, from what I understand from what you say, equality can sometimes become a destructive end without regard to the welfare of society as a whole. So, is equality only sometimes required? When someone conveniently says that in a particular case equality is destructive to the welfare of a society as a whole, are they then justified in denying equality to others? I suppose that slave owners could have made a similar argument. That because abolition may be bad for the economy, etc, it may be considered bad for society as a whole, and in the case of slaves, equality must be denied.

So are homosexuals “less equal” before the eyes of God? Does God not want them to have the same rights, including the legal and societal rights granted by marriage?

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I gave you the terms of the New Covenant. Exactly which part of the New Covenant do you maintain is compatible with God's unconditional love?

I am simply stating that a “covenant,” any covenant, is by definition a contract. And a contract holds conditions, again by definition. So unconditional love cannot be offered by God, if there is an implied condition by virtue of there being a covenant, or contract.

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We're getting bogged down in detail which has no correlation to the questions concerning theism or atheism so I'd like to summarize my understanding of where we are.

The Devil is in the details, my friend.

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You have been quoting a few of the books of the Bible and asking me for explanations and then you ask essentially the same question again repeatedly.

I’m not trying to upset you. I’ve only followed up those questions because you have continued the thread about them. If that’s annoying you, please feel free to move on from the subject.

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I have answered those questions as accurately as I can but I miss your point how that advances atheism.

Do you really doubt the relevance of the scriptures to theism and atheism?

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There are 66 books in the Bible all of which have to be considered in doing good exegesis. But I don't think accurate exegesis is really the point here but I’m at a loss to know exactly what it is.

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There are many texts in the Bible which teach God's love, some of which I have quoted. That they are there is undeniable. Quoting from the books written about Israel when they were in their infancy as a nation does not disprove anything about what the Bible teaches a thousand years later in their maturity.

One bad apple can ruin the whole barrel.

That there are good and loving things found in the bible abound has never been denied by myself. My point is that “all good” must be expected from an “all good God.” That this is not the case, as evident by the numerous passages I have quoted, undermines the whole concept of this “all good God.” There could be 666 books in the bible (not just 66), and it still wouldn’t change this point.

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So why would you as an atheist try to argue with my Biblical exegesis and to try to prove I'm wrong?

One could just as easily wonder why a theist would want to proclaim his biblical exegesis and try to prove that he is right.

But I’m not trying to specifically prove you wrong. I’m sorry if it appears that way to you. I am only expressing my opinion regarding theism versus atheism, and explaining what evidence I use to base that opinion.

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What is the meaning of that? Is my idea that the Bible teaches God's unconditional love that upsetting?

Actually, it is not upsetting at all. An atheist doesn’t have a God to defend, or gets upset if anyone undermines his God…what God?_________________I am Dariush the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage

What does this have to do with God’s intervention? Did God intervene and save the world from the Nazis, or did the Allies?

As I said, God intervenes in history to allow us freedom of choice. His agents are often human.

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to be arrogant. Because it’s very arrogant to think that Christians love their families more than non-Christian ones.

You completely ignored the evidence I presented that people do not have enough love for their families. It appears that in your opinion it is arrogant for me to state my opinion based on my own observations and facts. However, if facts fail then an ad hominem attack is certainly the way to go. On the other hand, because you are an atheist who is of course superior to the Christians, your statements that Christianity is just an ignorant superstition which has no benefits for humanity except to comfort the weak and cowardly is of course not at all arrogant. Also since Christianity has no moral value whatsoever, any indication on my part that Christianity can improve families is automatically ignorant and arrogant. This type of ad hominem attack signals the time to end the discussion has arrived.

I will answer a couple of other questions you asked on the way out and then I have some concluding ideas which I will post regarding the topic under discussion.

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Science was never MEANT to disprove God, but like I said, it has done so inadvertently. All the knowledge gained continues to disprove the religiously held dogmas regarding the universe.

Not only was science never meant to disprove God, but according to the modern definition, it can not even talk about God. For scientists like Newton, Science was a study of God's creation. Modern scientists have separated science from any discussion of the ultimate cause and only study "natural" phenomena. By defining science in that way, they have put questions regarding God beyond their reach. If someone proposes that God did something, that is automatically rejected from the realm of science by definition. That may give the illusion that science has somehow made God less likely but that is not the case, it has simply ignored the questions. In other words people who appeal to science in the debate about God are using circular reasoning.

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First, I cannot explain the nature of consciousness as the sum of its individual parts (brain cells), because nobody can currently do so. Science simply hasn’t made that discovery yet, and perhaps it never will.

Second, I don’t see why I have to make the above explanation in order to believe in free will.

So long as science can not explain consciousness based on unconscious atoms, the arguments against the consciousness of the first cause are flawed. You may have faith that someday science will provide the answer, but I don't share your faith. Science has used reductionism to explain many apparently complex phenomena by breaking them down into smaller components following Descarte's pattern. This has happened with neuroanatomy and functional brain studies but the mystery of consciousness grows more intractable. It is beginning to emerge that consciousness is probably a fundamental property of the universe just as matter and energy are a fundamental property rather than a derivative of other things.

If you are indeed a materialist who believes consciousness can be completely explained by the same laws of physics which govern inert matter, then your impression that you are making free choices is of course an illusion just as Nietzsche said. What is really happening is that the physical laws which govern matter are taking the input from your own body and from the environment and producing the responses which are produced by the laws of physics and chemistry which govern those constituents which make up the mind. You might pose the quantum theory as an alternative but that takes place at such a small scale it would probably not have much effect on the overall function of the brain. Even if it did, it would have nothing to do with freedom which originates from an executive conscious will. In fact, as Nietzsche said, the ego itself is just an illusion, provided illusions can even exist.

Also, any hopes of morality disappear since morality implies actual freedom of choice and executive will. If a person like Hitler can be completely explained by his heredity and environment that means he is no more responsible for his behavior than would a computer which gave an answer based on it's circuitry and programming. It makes no logical sense at all to hate Hitler since he was not responsible for his crimes, it was society and his own nature which led him to do those things. Why hate someone for doing something for which they bear no moral responsibility. Of course for a materialist, hatred of Hitler is also not an act of the will but a natural results of chemical and physical reactions which occur at the subconscious level.

Because they hadn't fallen completely for materialism, the English version of the Enlightenment tried to find natural laws governing morality. This seemed to be succeeding quite well until Charles Darwin wrote his books and destroyed any hope for a "scientific" version of morality. Darwin turns out to be a double edged sword for those who use him against God. By postulating that everything biological is completely explainable by "natural causes" he gives the atheists and agnostics a weapon against the theists. What they don't realize when they wield that sword is that every blow they take against God is also destroying their own humanity. If everything biological can be explained by the laws of physics and chemistry, then the arguments the atheists are using are nothing but the product of chemical reactions which are the result of their own environment and heredity. They also end up destroying all chances of morality since human consciousness is no longer in control of the mind but is simply the product of the chemical and electrical activity which is completely deterministic. As Darwin showed, human instincts include violence, racism and sexism. Therefore any hope of improving the world disappears into the mists of philosophy.

It is interesting that in the name of reason, people would destroy the very foundations of belief in reason. The French Enlightenment deified reason without reason. Robspierre tried to make a state religion worshiping the Goddess of Reason. The ironic part is that if they had actually used their reason more, they would have realized that reason is morally neutral and can be used just as easily to destroy and kill mankind as to ennoble and uplift him. Unfortunately they chose the path of destruction and hatred, not the path of love.

The only way out of the philosophical conundrum concerning consciousness, so far as I can tell, is to admit that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe which is not amenable to the usual physical explanations, just as Descartes did from the beginning. If you want to hold onto those "quaint" concepts such as morality, you have to also postulate that not only can matter influence consciousness, but consciousness can influence matter. Once you take that step, then it becomes very reasonable indeed to suppose that the first cause is also conscious. If the brain doesn't produce consciousness but harnesses what is already in existence, there is no longer any reason that God would not have consciousness. It also destroys the arguments against miracles since if we can influence the material world with our consciousness, there is no rational reason God can not do the same.

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Actually, the usual argument against miracles is that they are always either hoaxes or never took place.

Usually people who try to disprove miracles begin with the a priori assumption that they can not happen. The outcome is predetermined by the assumptions going into the investigation. This doesn't mean I accept every claim for miracles, but to deny they ever occur is based on pre-existing philosophy not facts.

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Furthermore, these great minds were great minds because of their contributions to various different subjects. One who is a genius at physics may not know didley squat about history or religion. One who is very knowledgeable regarding law or administration may not know jack about biology or philosophy.

And by agreeing with and following these great minds, are you not yourself following the cultural elites?

I don't believe in God because other people do but because of my own experiences and thinking. However, I don't try to claim that those who disagree with me are irrational, like you do, because I realize that rational intelligent people can disagree. You have tried to establish the principle that anyone who believes in God is irrational at least at that point, but of course you then have to say that some of the greatest minds in history were irrational simply because they disagree with you. Would the word arrogant be appropriate here? How do you know that it is not you who are irrational and that at the time they professed a belief in God, these great minds were acting at their most rational? To me the bottom line in the scientific method as outlined by Descartes is the willingness to admit that your ideas might be wrong. That applies equally to each of us. That is why I said we are each equally non-rational which you obviously found completely unacceptable.

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I’m not sure where you’re trying to go with this. Is logic to be occasionally set aside during discussions? Like I said before, if we try to ignore logic, the foundation of any argument and discussion falls apart and the whole thing becomes worthless.

You are trying to challenge the whole notion of what a “proof” really entails. By your argument, nothing is provable. I don’t buy that, nor do I buy Descartes’ arguments.

Since you don't acknowledge the point, let me be blunt then, you posted the following statement.

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"What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof."
— Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens made this statement without proof, therefore according to his own statement what he asserts in the statement can be dismissed without proof. According to my understanding of logic, that is a logical fallacy of the first order, it is irrational to issue self contradictory statements. If anyone starts their thinking based on irrational axioms, they will end up in a completely different place than if people are more careful.

Logic is a very useful tool but it depends on the basic assumptions one takes into the discussion or the basic axioms which one bases their logic on. What Descartes was advocating and what the scientific method is based on is experimentation and observations followed by theoretical constructs based on those observations. One of the failures of the French Enlightenment was that they forgot about the need to based their theories on reality. As I understand it, the scientific method is based on the assumption that whatever is held is subject to change as further evidence is accumulated, so there is no "proof" in the absolute sense.

So far as the existence of God, I believe there is plenty of evidence He exists. The very fact that we are alive, conscious, and having this discussion is evidence of His existence. You may not accept the evidence, but that doesn't negate the fact that it is evidence. That we both believe there is such a thing as right and wrong is evidence of His existence since in nature there is no rational reason to hold those beliefs. The fact the earth circles the sun and the moon circles the earth is evidence of His existence. Newton told us how these different things relate through gravity, but he didn't even attempt to tell us why there is such a thing as gravity. He believed they were acts of God. You can't explain any of these things either but you have "faith" that they are all the result of unconscious processes. Since you don't have any explanation for these things you can not really say that atheism is any better or even as good as theism in explaining the universe. I happen to think the universe is best explained by the idea of a good God who loves us, created the universe originally and upholds it with the power of His will. The natural laws which we observe are manifestations of God's goodness and His power. The additional benefit is that the belief in the good God gives me moral guidance and hope for the future which is absent in the atheistic world view.

As I said, I will probably post a couple of more things before I leave this discussion, but once a discussion degenerates into ad hominem attacks it is time to wind it down. Thank-you for a good discussion. I appreciate it very much. A good exchange of ideas helps sharpen our thoughts and to eliminate errors in our thinking. You have given me incentive to sit down and write down my thoughts and I appreciate that. I also appreciate your ideas which you have expressed and your commitment to goodness and freedom. I wish you the best.

Not only was science never meant to disprove God, but according to the modern definition, it can not even talk about God. For scientists like Newton, Science was a study of God's creation. Modern scientists have separated science from any discussion of the ultimate cause and only study "natural" phenomena. By defining science in that way, they have put questions regarding God beyond their reach.

If Newton viewed science as a study of God’s creation, that was his misrepresentation of science. He may have been a great physicist and mathematician, but if he viewed science differently than what science actually is, that may have been a mistake on his part. Science has nothing to do with God. Science is the observation, quantification, prediction, and reproduction of natural phenomena. It is not meant to be more, and it is no less.

Questions regarding God are not meant to be answered by science. However, as it happens, science has provided the answers that superstition never could. Science has provided answers that happen to be in conflict with the theory of God.

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If someone proposes that God did something, that is automatically rejected from the realm of science by definition.

That’s not because science and scientists have set out to ignore and deny God. The answer becomes clear when we consider what science encompasses. Science encompasses measurability, reproducibility, and predictability in relation to the available data, among other things. God’s alleged existence is not at all measurable, reproducible, or predictable. So how can God possibly fit in the realm of science? Theism has defined itself in a certain way. Science has defined itself in a certain way. The way that the two have defined themselves makes them incompatible with each other, because of the essence of each.

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So long as science can not explain consciousness based on unconscious atoms, the arguments against the consciousness of the first cause are flawed. You may have faith that someday science will provide the answer, but I don't share your faith.

Because atoms themselves are unconscious, consciousness cannot be linked to them? Because the sum of the parts is greater than the total of the individual parts, there must be a mysterious force out there, called God?

Like I told you before, I don’t hold the explanation regarding how individual atoms come together to form brain cells, which then come together to form a brain, which in turn is responsible for consciousness. But just because no-one has the exact explanation yet doesn’t mean that we must add in an artificial corrective factor called God. Whether science will ever provide that answer I don’t know, but it changes nothing. Furthermore, I don’t have faith regarding science’s ability to do so in the future. Either it will, or it won’t. Faith regarding the matter is inconsequential.

There are other examples whereby the sum of the parts defy explanation based on consideration of the individual parts. A cell is considered alive. How is life defined? A cell is also made up of individual atoms, which are not alive. How do those atoms combine to create the essence of life? At what point is that structure no longer a bag of water surrounded by a lipid membrane and becomes a living cell? At what point is that living cell no longer alive, and just a bag of nutrients? How did non-living atoms combine to form a living cell? Was it God’s work? Since you cannot explain life based on its individual constituency, do you attribute life to be another fundamental property of the universe?

A Hydrogen molecule has very distinct properties. An Oxygen molecule also has its own distinct and different properties. Combine them, and you get water, H2O, with now completely different properties than either the Oxygen or Hydrogen. Though water is made up of H and O, neither the properties of H nor O can explain the properties of H2O. H2O is now far different than the simple addition of H plus O. We can partly explain these properties based on the geometric configuration of H2O and the new valency bonds, but how exactly the new valency orbits exist is a mystery. What made H2O so different than O2 or H2? Must we look to God for the explanation of this mystery? Since you cannot explain H2O based on its individual constituency, do you attribute H2O to be another fundamental property of the universe?

A computer, though not alive or conscious, is capable of very complex analyses and mathematical calculations. A computer is made up of various atoms, none of which are capable of performing such tasks individually. How did the bits of silicone and copper combine to form a structure that is capable of such complex analytical work? Since you cannot explain a computer based on its individual constituency, do you attribute the computer to be another fundamental property of the universe? Who created the computer? Was it God? Was it man? Is man now a God?

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It is beginning to emerge that consciousness is probably a fundamental property of the universe just as matter and energy are a fundamental property rather than a derivative of other things.

Since I can trace consciousness to the brain, and the brain to the individual brain cells, and the brain cells to their constituent matter, I conclude that consciousness is not a fundamental property, but belongs to the property of matter.

Quote:

If you are indeed a materialist who believes consciousness can be completely explained by the same laws of physics which govern inert matter, then your impression that you are making free choices is of course an illusion just as Nietzsche said. What is really happening is that the physical laws which govern matter are taking the input from your own body and from the environment and producing the responses which are produced by the laws of physics and chemistry which govern those constituents which make up the mind.

I do believe that consciousness is entirely the result of the matter which makes up the brain. However, I don’t agree with the rest of your argument. Since the brain has taken on the new property of consciousness by virtue of the various complex interactions between the neurons, it has become self-aware and no longer just a domino in a chain of dominos. Consciousness is self-awareness. This self-awareness allows the brain and the body to which it is attached to navigate through the world in a way that it would not have been able to do without consciousness. The analytical capability allows the person to take himself out of the chain of cause and event. If the chain of "one cause one event" is bypassed, and more than one possible event becomes available for a single cause, then fatalism is broken.

We both agree that the answer to free will is consciousness. It is only our explanation of the origin of consciousness that differs. It doesn’t make a difference how consciousness originated in so far as free will is concerned. All that matters is that consciousness exists. The properties of consciousness don’t change whether I believe that it was forged simply by brain cells or whether I believe it originated from the spirit realm.

The question for the theist regarding free will is this. If everything was created by a powerful overseer, who has a grand design and the power to intervene at any time and either change the past, present, or future, does free will really exist? A world which can be changed at the whim of an all powerful being can never really be free. Even if we accept that this powerful being has chosen not to switch anything around, and has not done so in the past, what guarantee is there that he won’t do it tomorrow? There is no such assurance, and thus free will is an illusion for the theist.

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Also, any hopes of morality disappear since morality implies actual freedom of choice and executive will.

I agree that morality becomes non-existent in a fatalistic world. And that’s how many theists have bypassed morality in the past, after stating “it is God’s will that such and such should happen.” God’s will, not man’s has been invoked too many times to justify immoral and unjust events. Who are we to question God’s will?

Quote:

Because they hadn't fallen completely for materialism, the English version of the Enlightenment tried to find natural laws governing morality. This seemed to be succeeding quite well until Charles Darwin wrote his books and destroyed any hope for a "scientific" version of morality.

Like I said before, we need not look to science to guide us in our morality. That’s not the job of science.

Quote:

What they don't realize when they wield that sword is that every blow they take against God is also destroying their own humanity. If everything biological can be explained by the laws of physics and chemistry, then the arguments the atheists are using are nothing but the product of chemical reactions which are the result of their own environment and heredity. They also end up destroying all chances of morality since human consciousness is no longer in control of the mind but is simply the product of the chemical and electrical activity which is completely deterministic. As Darwin showed, human instincts include violence, racism and sexism. Therefore any hope of improving the world disappears into the mists of philosophy.

This might have been convincing if we believed that consciousness in fact did not exist. In your explanation you have destroyed the concept of consciousness and devalued it to the level of a knee-jerk response. As such, consciousness is no longer consciousness, which as I see it is self-awareness. If there is no consciousness, and thus no self-awareness, then indeed morality becomes non-existent. However, as I explained above, materialism takes no swing at consciousness. The brain has given rise to this new property which although is not inconsistent with the realms of physics and chemistry, can manipulate and direct events in a new direction.

Again, the properties of consciousness are the same for both of us. It is only its origin that’s in question. And its origin has no relevance to its ability to create free will.

Quote:

The ironic part is that if they had actually used their reason more, they would have realized that reason is morally neutral and can be used just as easily to destroy and kill mankind as to ennoble and uplift him. Unfortunately they chose the path of destruction and hatred, not the path of love.

Reason is what it is. Reason and logic do not change. If someone uses the name of reason to make unreasonable statements, then it is not reason which can be faulted, but the person who made the erroneous statement. One can dress up a monkey and call him his uncle, but the monkey is still a monkey.

Quote:

The only way out of the philosophical conundrum concerning consciousness, so far as I can tell, is to admit that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe which is not amenable to the usual physical explanations, just as Descartes did from the beginning.

Not so. Consciousness need not exit the realm of the physical. Consciousness belongs in the physical realm, but because of its very nature, or self-awareness, it is not subject to simply one input in, one output out. It allows for the branching of possibilities.

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If you want to hold onto those "quaint" concepts such as morality, you have to also postulate that not only can matter influence consciousness, but consciousness can influence matter.

I cannot accept that consciousness can influence matter. There simply exists no evidence in all history to show that it has ever done so. I require evidence. If some day evidence is presented to the contrary, I will accept the notion that it can affect matter. That’s precisely the point regarding science. It accepts that which is consistent with the evidence and the data. If new data is presented, the prior notion must be re-examined. No faithful attachment is assigned to any particular notion, and everything can be challenged and re-examined. However, to take that challenge seriously, actual data and evidence must be presented. Until then, the truths we hold are the best approximations to the ultimate truth.

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Usually people who try to disprove miracles begin with the a priori assumption that they can not happen. The outcome is predetermined by the assumptions going into the investigation. This doesn't mean I accept every claim for miracles, but to deny they ever occur is based on pre-existing philosophy not facts.

Not so. Not everyone who investigated miracles necessarily entered into it with the assumption that it was false. Nonetheless, investigating a matter based on an assumption does not doom the investigation to error. It is the manner by which the investigation is carried out that deems it trustworthy, not the initial assumption. Actually, science is based on investigating facts based on a pre-conceived assumption. Every decent piece of research is based on an initial hypothesis. The hypothesis may be termed in a positive or negative fashion. If it is termed in a negative fashion, or “null hypothesis,” the investigator starts by “assuming” that there is no real statistical correlation between two events. By using statistical analysis upon the available data, he then proves the null hypothesis to be true or false. Therefore, he shows that indeed there was no association (null hypothesis) or that there actually is an association. So you see, we must start with a hypothesis, and then test it. That is the scientific method. We get a revelation, whether the hypothesis was correct or not.

Similarly, those who set out to investigate a miracle by having an initial hypothesis that the miracle was false are not necessarily contaminating the investigation. If they stayed consistent with the data, their conclusion is not tainted.

Quote:

You have tried to establish the principle that anyone who believes in God is irrational at least at that point,

I’ve tried to show that using logic, the likelihood of the existence of God is close to zero, if not zero. I’ve used logic to show why there is no God. It has not been my goal to label anyone.

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but of course you then have to say that some of the greatest minds in history were irrational simply because they disagree with you. Would the word arrogant be appropriate here?

I’m sure that I have already addressed this issue on more than one occasion in my prior posts.

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How do you know that it is not you who are irrational and that at the time they professed a belief in God, these great minds were acting at their most rational?

I’ve never held a discussion with these people regarding God. I don’t know exactly what they based their beliefs upon. I don’t know whether they examined God with the same questions that I’ve posed or not. If those questions were never posed to them, and they never considered them, how can I know whether they acted rationally or not? If I posed those questions to them, and received a reply from them, then I could formulate an opinion regarding their rationality. Many have considered the same questions, and many have not (that I know about).

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To me the bottom line in the scientific method as outlined by Descartes is the willingness to admit that your ideas might be wrong.

Of course. The willingness to admit that anything can be wrong is the pillar of science. However, even though this thought is correct, it is not complete. I would make an addition to that statement. Even though we must be prepared to accept our ideas as being potentially wrong, we can certainly hold our ideas to be more and more the approximation of the truth, provided that those ideas have been consistent with the available evidence and data. If more and more information and theories through time prove to be consistent with our prior ideas, then those prior ideas will be held to be more and more consistent with the truth.

We can be prepared to admit that an idea may be wrong. But if the idea becomes more and more solid with proof by the passage of time, the likelihood of that idea being wrong approaches closer and closer to zero. That’s what science is all about.

If I catch Santa Claus riding his reindeer sleigh above my town next Christmas Eve, I will re-examine my ideas regarding Santa.

So yes, if God comes down from Mt. Sinai tomorrow and says hello to me, my neighbors, and the rest of the world, then I will certainly go back and re-examine my ideas regarding God. Since I don’t see him doing that tomorrow, or ever, I feel very safe with my current ideas.

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Christopher Hitchens made this statement without proof, therefore according to his own statement what he asserts in the statement can be dismissed without proof.

His statement was self-evident. However, since you wish to press the issue, I’ll provide the proof on his behalf.

- Let’s begin by examining the definition of the word “proof:”

“The evidence or argument that compels the mind to accept an assertion as true.”

- So, “proof” requires evidence (or at least a logical argument)

- Also, in order to compel the mind to accept an assertion as true, evidence (or a logical argument) must be given

- No evidence, no proof. No proof, no acceptation of an assertion

- No acceptation of an assertion equates to dismissal of that assertion

- The dismissal of that assertion was incumbent only upon the original lack of proof, and not to any subsequent event, such as the presentation of new evidence, or proof, to discount the original assertion

- It follows that the dismissal of the assertion was only the result of the lack of proof that was present at the introduction of that assertion, and nothing else

- Therefore, "What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof."

….and there’s the proof.

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So far as the existence of God, I believe there is plenty of evidence He exists. The very fact that we are alive, conscious, and having this discussion is evidence of His existence.

Huh????????????

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That we both believe there is such a thing as right and wrong is evidence of His existence since in nature there is no rational reason to hold those beliefs.

Huh?????????????

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The fact the earth circles the sun and the moon circles the earth is evidence of His existence.

Huh?????????????

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Newton told us how these different things relate through gravity, but he didn't even attempt to tell us why there is such a thing as gravity. He believed they were acts of God. You can't explain any of these things either but you have "faith" that they are all the result of unconscious processes.

We already had this discussion, in that science does not explain the “why” but the “how.” Every question can eventually be backtracked to an unanswerable question. Neither the theist nor the atheist has the answer to this ultimate question. Except that the theist chose to fill the void with the answer “God,” which really doesn’t provide any more of an explanation.

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As I said, I will probably post a couple of more things before I leave this discussion, but once a discussion degenerates into ad hominem attacks it is time to wind it down. Thank-you for a good discussion. I appreciate it very much. A good exchange of ideas helps sharpen our thoughts and to eliminate errors in our thinking. You have given me incentive to sit down and write down my thoughts and I appreciate that. I also appreciate your ideas which you have expressed and your commitment to goodness and freedom. I wish you the best.

I understand and respect your decision to leave the discussion. I also thank you for taking the time to ponder these issues with me. I similarly wish you the best.

It was nice to talk to you._________________I am Dariush the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage

There are two major Western viewpoints regarding reality of which I’m aware. One is materialism and the other is dualism. Idealism is less widely held. If materialism is at one extreme recognizing only matter-energy as real, dualism is in the middle recognizing both matter and spirit as real, while idealism as I understand it only recognizes spirit or human thought as real. Recognition of both the spiritual realm and the physical realm has been the majority position within the Judeo-Christian morality and culture and was so compatible with the Greek philosophers that Aristotle’s teachings were considered the orthodox Christian positions for a long period of time.

Over time, materialism has come to dominate scientific circles and has led to considerable progress in scientific research. Darwin’s book explaining the Origin of Species on completely materialistic terms and it’s companion book, Descent of Man, which applied the theories to humans have had an overwhelming effect on the understanding of the natural world. Most Western atheists and agnostics defend their beliefs on the basis of materialism. This is the philosophical position that everything is composed of matter-energy and that understanding the laws of physics and chemistry will explain everything which exists in the universe. The online dictionary defines materialism thus: Philosophy. The theory that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena.

According to materialists all mental processes by definition must be explainable by the same laws and properties which are found in inanimate objects. Although there is much debate about how the brain accomplishes this task it is not germane to this discussion since the underlying assumption under all schemes is that the human brain is a completely material object which should be just as predictable as any other material object if one could account for all the atoms and their relationships within the brain and it’s environment. The brain is simply a chemical computer with considerable wired in circuitry which processes information which it receives through the senses. Everything there is to know about a person could be completely explained by his heredity and environment if those could be completely known. This naturalistic assumption has overwhelming importance in understanding consciousness, human reason, morality, truth and free will.

Since consciousness is not an experimentally proven property of matter and has no proven causative value in natural systems, it can not have any role in explaining human behavior in a completely materialistic world. Since inanimate objects don’t exhibit consciousness, one must conclude that so far as science is concerned, consciousness either doesn’t exist at all or is a byproduct of the mind and plays no causative role in behavior whatsoever. It could be considered a useless byproduct of the mind which is of less value in describing survival or function than is the urine which is voided from the bladder. Just as the kidneys excretes the waste products in the urine and the mind excretes consciousness.

This leads to a fundamental paradox in materialism. Of all groups, the materialists assume they are the most rational, and yet their theory contradicts the belief that reason can influence behavior or speech whatsoever. Rationalism assumes the conscious thoughts have causative power and can be used to select and test among a variety of possibilities. The conclusion is then fed into the motor cortex of the brain and finds physical expression. But based on the assumptions of the materialists, this is impossible. Since the conscious self is only a byproduct of the physical world acting through the brain and is not reality itself, it can not influence the physical world whatsoever. Indeed the conscious self even if it could act rationally could not give expression to it’s experience since the science of the material world doesn’t recognize any causative agent called consciousness and therefore consciousness can not change the material world in any way.

The effects of materialism are even more devastating to morality. In the physical world there is no such thing as right or wrong, moral or immoral. If the brain is just a chemical computer operated by the same laws which describe the rest of the physical world there is no possibility of a choice to be made between right and wrong. Allowing for some randomness due to quantum effects, all behavior by necessity must be completely explainable by the environment and the heredity of the individual who is behaving in a certain way. There is no room for the individual to perform a conscious free decision which would constitute a moral choice with resultant moral responsibility. Ultimately the strongest source of behavior is the instincts which are caused by natural selection. Until Darwin, theorists could postulate a benign human nature in which empathy was the dominant motive, but this is no longer possible. As Darwin rightly concluded from his theory, the human race has evolved to this point through the “survival of the fittest” which puts each of us in a conflict unto the death with each other person. The basic unit of behavior is the “selfish gene” which underlies and explains all human behavior. Genuine altruism is simply not possible under this system. Since all behavior is completely dependent on environment and heredity with some possible randomness, what is acceptable behavior to one individual will be unacceptable to another. Since there is no objective standard against which to measure behavior, “right” behavior is whatever the individual perceives is “right” and “wrong” behavior is anything the individual perceives is “wrong.” In a group setting “right” behavior is anything the group can condition the individual to believe is “right” and “wrong behavior is anything which the group an condition the individual to think is “wrong.”

In a completely materialistic world, the word truth itself becomes a phantom. Since the rational facilities of the mind are not under conscious control, “truth” for each individual is completely the product of their heredity and environment. Your “truth” will not be my “truth” depending upon the unique physical properties of our respective minds and the differences in our personal experiences. This understanding is becoming quite common in the post modern world as the reality of the theory of materialism becomes to dominate public thought.

Finally I would like to address the idea of freedom of the will. In a materialistic world, as I have already explained, there is no executive conscious will. Therefore any discussion of freedom is useless. The conscious executive will is nothing but a phantom created by the material deterministic mind and the belief that you can consciously command your arm to move and it moves, or command your lips to speak and they speak is nothing but a delusion. Since there is no conscious will found as a causative agent in the inanimate material world, by definition no such causative agent can operate in the human mind. Thanks to our materialists friends who insist they are the only arbiters of truth, we can now realize our profound mistake and acknowledge that most of what we consciously experience on a daily basis is a delusion. While Descartes concluded, “I think, I am,” the materialists have reached a much different conclusion, “I think, therefore I’m a delusion of a delusion of a delusion....” Since I have concluded from personal experience I am actually a thinking, rational, free individual, for me there is little difficulty making the choice between these alternatives, and logically, if I’m wrong and materialism is a complete explanation of nature, I’m still not wrong since in materialism there is no right and wrong.

The following is an interesting post which makes many of the same points as I have been making about the anti-Christian secularists from the viewpoint of an agnostic psychiatrist. It is located in the post for Monday, May 01, 2006.

There is a cultural war in our country and the anti-Christian secularists are determined to destroy Christianity in our country and wipe out our culture just as they have in Europe. To a large extent they are allies with radical Islam since they both want the same things. She thinks they eventually hope to overcome Islam after Christianity and Judiasm are eleminated, but I really don't think so. They will live happily in a totalitarian Islamic state if they get to hold the power. After all, Shria law is designed to keep the common people totally subservant to the leader, but so far as I know places few restraints on his appetites or actions.

As a Christian, I'm disappointed because Bush has been largely absent as a moral leader for the country. The last truly "Christian" president was Ronald Reagan who openly promoted the values which made our country great. If he would step up to the plate he could probably improve his approval ratings considerably and do the country much good. If I were talking to him, here would be some suggestions:
1. If we have separation of church and state where our own government is not allowed to engage in religious activities in our country, why should Saudi Arabia be allowed to pour millions of government dollars into anti-Christian pro Wahabbi propaganda?
2. Why not talk about the Christians and the black Muslims being slaughtered in Sudan?
3. Democracy without other freedoms is sometimes worse than an autocracy. Why doesn't he talk about our values of care for individuals even those of other faiths or no faith, our freedom of speech even when it offends people of faith or no faith, freedom to choose your own religion or to apostasize if one desires, and freedom to attend American universities without being assaulted in the humanities with anti-Christian propaganda and censor of Christian speech?
4. Since the anti-Christian secularists are trying to deceive the newer citizens about the source of our liberties, why not talk about the founders and their personal faith?

I'm sure he would receive a lot of hate from the anti-Christian secularists but they are already so rabid, they couldn't be much more damaging than they already are. On the other hand, if we wish to have any chance to defeat the radical Islamists, we will have to stand up for our own values. A society which has no values can not well stand against one which does.

Although I don’t want to go into Christian theology any further at this site, I do want to discuss the New Covenant briefly since it came up in the previous discussion. The Christian Bible is divided into two parts which are named the New Testament (Covenant) and the Old Testament (Covenant). The idea of covenant has obviously been important in Christian Theology for a long time.

My understanding of covenants is that each covenant contains a new more advanced understanding of God’s character. The major covenant in the Hebrew Scriptures are the Ten Commandments given at Mt. Sinai. It is a national covenant with the Israelites and deals with them as a group or corporation and laid out the fundamental principles of moral national life. This covenant was given for the nation of Israel to govern their life in the Land of Canaan and had no promises of eternal life. As the national covenant it made promises of mercy for their sins. As a corporation, the children inherited the benefits of the father’s faithfulness lands and the negative effects of their sins. While the punishment would only last for three or four generations which may be 60-80 years, the blessings were for a thousand generations or about 20,000 years. In other words no matter how many time Israel sinned, the nation was still not to be rejected since the blessings far outlasted any punishment.

Quote:

Ex 20:4-6
4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand [ generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments.
NIV

The New Covenant is found in Jeremiah and is prefaced with the following sentence:

Quote:

Jer 31:3-4
"I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with loving-kindness.
4 I will build you up again
and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel.
NIV

We then find the following statement immediately prior to the New Covenant:

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Jer 31:29-30
9 "In those days people will no longer say,
'The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge.'
30 Instead, everyone will die for his own sin; whoever eats sour grapes--his own teeth will be set on edge.
NIV

In other words, God is making a covenant to deal with people on an individual basis and not just as a corporate. This is the basis for non-Jews to enjoy the same covenant relationship with God that Jews have. The New covenant is for everyone. It is not the basis for any type of theocracy but is to inform the individual morality.
Here are the actual terms of the New Covenant:

Quote:

Jer 31:31-34
31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD,
"when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,"
declares the LORD.
33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
declares the LORD.
"For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."
NIV

The covenant made when Israel was led from the land of Egypt, which was broken is the Sinai Covenant. The New Covenant replaces it with better terms although it is clear the principles of righteousness are not abolished. God promises to write His laws in our minds and in our hearts. If one accepts the materialist philosophy which does not allow any human freedom whatsoever and condemns us to a completely selfish nature as defined by Darwinian selection there is nothing which we can do to change naturally. Only by divine intervention can we have moral freedom to chose to love other people and this is just what the New Covenant promises. It goes on to promise God’s help in understanding Him, to really “know the Lord.” Finally it promises complete forgiveness of sins, a free pass.

Since God takes responsibility for our obedience, all we have to do is to accept the offer by faith. In this chapter we find everlasting love, power to renew our lives morally and spiritually, the promise to know God personally, and unlimited forgiveness. The moral renewal under the New Covenant is not obtained by our righteousness or submission to the control of another, it is a gift of God offered freely to every human who accepts God’s offer.

Just in case those enjoying the New Covenant might think God has rejected the Jewish people the passage goes on:

Quote:

Jer 31:35-36
This is what the LORD says,
he who appoints the sun
to shine by day,
who decrees the moon and stars
to shine by night,
who stirs up the sea
so that its waves roar--
the LORD Almighty is his name:
36 "Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,"
declares the LORD,
"will the descendants of Israel ever cease
to be a nation before me.
NIV

The New Covenant is good news for everyone. God loves us all and has promised us all unlimited love, the power which we by nature lack to perform righteous acts, and complete forgiveness for those times we fall short of the mark.

Finally, this covenant is not to be used as an excuse to judge and condemn other people who may have different beliefs but also wish to elevate mankind and bring freedom to the oppressed. Although as a Christian, I believe Christianity, particularly Protestant Christianity, is the best vehicle to bring human uplifting and renewal, but that doesn’t mean God can not use other people who hold different beliefs. We may debate our differing points of view but in the end, we are all in this fight for freedom together.

Good Test Case For Mature Secular Democracy
Mount Soledad Cross ControversyIn Mount Soledad Cross Controversy Case
Who Is Right?
and What Is The Right Thing To Do?

A section of the memorial wall at Mount Soledad On May 3, 2006, a federal judge ruled that the Mount Soledad cross must be removed from the property within 90 days, or the city of San Diego will be fined $5,000 a day. The U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. declared that "It is now time, and perhaps long overdue, for this Court to enforce its initial permanent injunction forbidding the presence of the Mount Soledad Cross on City property."[8] The current mayor, Jerry Sanders, says he plans on proposing an appeal to the decision by Judge Thompson. Sanders pointed out that over 75% of San Diego voters believe the cross should remain in place, as evidenced by the votes in favor of transferring the memorial property to the federal government. The head of the Mount Soledad Memorial Association, the private organization that operates the memorial, hopes that the cross will be taken down and moved to a nearby private property. [1]

Mount Soledad is a prominent landmark in the city of San Diego, California. The 822-foot-tall hill lies between Interstate 5 to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is mostly within the community of La Jolla where the northern and eastern slopes form a sharp escarpment along the Rose Canyon Fault. The community of Pacific Beach is on the gentler southern slope. There are several radio and television transmitters located on the summit including television channels 8 and 10, the CBS and ABC affiliates respectively. Commercial aircraft approaching San Diego from the direction of Los Angeles often use Mt. Soledad as their point to start the downwind leg of their approach to San Diego International Airport.

[edit]
The cross controversy

Mount Soledad Easter Cross

Mount Soledad Easter CrossJust east of the summit of Mt. Soledad is the 29-foot-tall cross which was erected in 1954 ( court documents list it as 43 feet tall).[1] The cross is the centerpiece of a Korean War Memorial (memorial erected after a 1998 sale of the cross and the land it stands on to the nonprofit Mount Soledad Memorial Association). A cross had been on the site since 1913]].[2][1] The City of San Diego was the target of a lawsuit in 1989 charging that the presence of the cross violated the California Constitution and the separation of church and state in the United States. On December 3, 1991, Gordon Thompson, Jr., a judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, ruled in favor of the plaintiff, Philip Paulson, an atheist, noting that the cross was permanently positioned inside a public park and was maintained at taxpayers' expense. He further noted that it violated Article 1, Section 4 of the California Constitution, which is known as the "No Preference" Clause.[3][1]

On June 2, 1992, San Diego voters approved Proposition F, which allowed transfer of a portion of Mt. Soledad Natural Park to a non-profit corporation for maintenance of a historic war memorial.[1] In 1993, the city appealed the 1991 District Court decision (permanent injunction forbidding the permanent presence of the cross on publicly owned land) to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the District Court injunction, holding that the mere designation of the cross as a war memorial was not enough to satisfy the separationist No Preference Clause of the California Constitution.[1] The Ninth Circuit Appellate Court held that "highly visible, religiously significant Easter crosses, erected in public parks owned and maintained by local government, in the absence of any symbols of other religions, and without any independent historical significance, violated the 'No Preference' Clause of the California Constitution".[3] The City and County of San Diego petitioned and were granted a hearing en banc (a vote by the entire 28 judges of the court). They lost by an unanimous vote by all 28 judges.[3]

In response to the injunction, in 1994, the city sold 224 square feet of land at the base of the cross for $24,000 to the Mount Soledad Association.[4] At that time, the city did not solicit or consider any bids or offers from other prospective buyers of this land and the Association clearly stated its intention to keep the cross as part of its proposed war memorial.[1]

On October 10, 1994, the City and County of San Diego then petitioned the US Supreme Court with a Writ of Certiorari[3]; the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.[5]

On September 18, 1997, Judge Thompson ruled that both the negotiated sale of the cross site to the Mount Soledad Memorial Association and the size for the plot sold to the Mount Soledad Memorial Association violated two separate provisions of the California Constitution. Judge Thompson wrote, "it is the exclusion of any other purchasers of or bidders for the land that gives the appearance of preferring the Christian religion that the California Constitution forbids." Judge Thompson also wrote that "the City’s attempt to comply with this Court’s order by selling only a small portion of the land underneath the Mount Soledad cross still shows a preference or aid to the Christian religion."[3] Judge Thompson added, "Both the method of sale and the amount of land sold underneath the Mount Soledad cross do not cure the constitutional infirmities outlined in this Court’s previous Order."[1] (referring to the December 3, 1991 order stating "a permanent injunction forbidding the permanent presence" of the Mount Soledad cross on public property.[3] Judge Thompson again gave the City of San Diego another 30 days to remove the cross).[3]

The City attempted to sell the land to a private group again in 1998. Five bids were submitted; the bid from the Mount Soledad Memorial Association (the highest) was accepted[1] and a half-acre of land around the cross was sold to the Association for $106,000.[4] In a decision issued on February 3, 2000, Judge Thompson upheld the transfer. However, in a 7-4 decision[6], the appellate court Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the City's sale of the cross to the Mount Soledad Memorial Association violated Article XVI, section 5, of the California Constitution, which prohibits government from affording any financial advantage or subsidy to religion.[6][1]

The City and the Mount Soledad Memorial Association petitioned the Court for reconsideration and/or rehearing, which was denied on October 22, 2002. The City thereafter sought review of the en banc decision by the United States Supreme Court. On April 21, 2003, the Supreme Court denied defendants' petitions for review.[6]

Plaintiff Paulson and defendant Mount Soledad Memorial Association agreed to a settlement that called for removal of the cross in exchange for which the Association would gain ownership of the property. The other defendant, the City of San Diego, never agreed to the settlement. While the cross and land were apparently owned by the Association (after the 1998 sale), the Association spent over $900,000 to add significant improvements to the memorial site, including six concentric granite wall, pavers, bollards, and a flagpole with American flag. Additionally, the Association sold over 1,600 plaques memorializing individual service men and women. What began as a simple ... cross evolved into several walls of plaques encircling the cross.[7]

In November 2004, voters rejected a ballot measure to authorize a third sale of the land.

Plaque at the base of the crossOn December 8, 2004, Section 116 of Public Law 108-447 designated the Memorial as a national veterans memorial national memorial, authorized the United States Department of the Interior to accept a donation of the memorial from the City, and directed the National Park Service to work with the Mount Soledad Memorial Association in the administration and maintenance of the memorial. This veterans memorial designation was added by Republican Reps. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Duncan Hunter as a rider to a voluminous spending bill approved in November 2004 by Congress.[7] Under the bill, the site would become part of the National Park Service but would be maintained by the Mount Soledad Memorial Association.[7] On March 8, 2005 the San Diego City Council voted against a proposal to transfer the land to the National Park Service, a move which proponents believed might avoid the court-ordered removal of the cross. Opponents claimed this would merely shift the church-state issue to federal jurisdiction and would only delay the eventual removal of the cross.

Grassroots opposition to the City Council's action resulted in a referendary petition, signed by over 100,000 County of San Diego residents, calling on the Council to reverse its decision against donating the property. On May 16, 2005, the Council reconsidered its decision to transfer the land at the request of those petitioners, and, after rejecting a proposal to directly donate the land to the Federal government in a 5-4 vote, the Council voted 6-3 to include a ballot measure in the upcoming special Mayoral election to be held July 26 which would allow the voters of San Diego ballot item (PDF) to approve the donation.

On July 26, 2005, the ballot measure to transfer the property to the Interior Department as a veterans memorial passed with 76% of the vote, easily exceeding the two-thirds threshold required to pass. However, the plaintiff in the federal court case filed a lawsuit in state court challenging the constitutionality of the proposition.
Mount Soledad Easter Cross

Mount Soledad Easter CrossOn September 3, Superior Court Judge Patricia Yin Cowett issued a temporary restraining order barring the transfer until the issue was settled. Lawyers on each side presented their arguments on October 3, 2005. A key issue was the status of the area as a secular war memorial, given the fact that it was not developed as a memorial until ten years after the first lawsuit. Prior to the law suit, no plaque or marker designated or explained the site's status as a war memorial, and during the fifty years prior to the law suit, there were no ceremonies or recognitions of the Korean War or to war veterans at the site, only Easter Sunday services. A 1985 AAA map of the "San Diego Area" identifies the cross as the Mt. Soledad Easter Cross. [citation needed]

The plaintiff argued that the ballot measure was unconstitutional because it resulted in an unconstitutional act -- transferring the property to the federal government for the purpose of saving the cross, a purely religious symbol. The City argued that the purpose of the ballot measure was to determine the will of the people of San Diego with respect to the federal government's offer to accept a donation of the property. The private citizens' group which had sponsored the petition leading to ballot measure argued that display of the cross was not unconstitutional because the many significant improvements added to it removed any doubt that it is a genuine veterans memorial.

On October 7, 2005, Judge Cowett found the ballot measure unconstitutional. Her ruling stated: "Maintenance of this Latin Cross as it is on the property in question, is found to be an unconstitutional preference of religion in violation of Article I, Section 4, of the California Constitution, and the transfer of the memorial with the cross as its centerpiece to the federal government to save the cross as it is, where it is, is an unconstitutional aid to religion in violation of Article XVI, Section 5, of the California Constitution."

In December, 2005 Philip Paulson's lawyer James McElroy asked a San Diego Superior Court judge to order the city of San Diego to pay his legal fees for the October victory. On January 13, 2006, Judge Cowett ruled that the city must pay for McElroy's fees, but exactly how much is yet to be determined. The city plans to appeal.

A section of the memorial wall at Mount SoledadA section of the memorial wall at Mount SoledadOn May 3, 2006, a federal judge ruled that the Mount Soledad cross must be removed from the property within 90 days, or the city of San Diego will be fined $5,000 a day. The U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. declared that "It is now time, and perhaps long overdue, for this Court to enforce its initial permanent injunction forbidding the presence of the Mount Soledad Cross on City property."[8] The current mayor, Jerry Sanders, says he plans on proposing an appeal to the decision by Judge Thompson. Sanders pointed out that over 75% of San Diego voters believe the cross should remain in place, as evidenced by the votes in favor of transferring the memorial property to the federal government. The head of the Mount Soledad Memorial Association, the private organization that operates the memorial, hopes that the cross will be taken down and moved to a nearby private property. [1]

On May 11, 2006, Karen Kucher of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported: "Mayor Jerry Sanders on Thursday sought presidential intervention in the legal battle over the Mount Soledad cross, asking President Bush to use the power of eminent domain to take the city-owned property in La Jolla on which the memorial and cross sit. Sanders warned of the “uncertain future” of the monument and said he fully supported the federal government condemning the property to save the cross, a request first made late Wednesday by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine. ... City Attorney Michael Aguirre weighed in on the issue Thursday afternoon – several hours after the mayor's press conference – and he questioned whether the request for federal condemnation of the property violated an existing judicial order. “Such a move may be viewed by the San Diego Superior and United State District courts as being in violation of existing judicial orders and could result in a contempt finding and or sanctions against the city of San Diego,” Aguirre said in a statement."[9]

In the future I want to discuss the differences in the Enlightenment as expressed in America, France and England and how this has impacted the societies and their governments. This impacts directly on how each society views the proper role of religion in "secular" society. We have never been a secular society like the French claim to have. What we have is a deeply religious society which has made it illegal for the government to interfere in the free practice of religion. The shared Judeo-Christian culture has always been considered essential for our democracy to function.

I had already prepared the following post before Cyrus posted his information so I hope he won't mind if I post material on Reason and Logic. I'm not trying to change the subject.

Logic and Reason

Before moving on to a discussion of dualism, I need to discuss logic and reason to enable those who have always believed that materialism is the only possibly correct viewpoint to see a viable alternative. Philosophers can debate over the existence of God, and so far as I know, neither side will accuse the other of irrationality, and yet many people who have not studied philosophy believe that for those who are educated, only atheism or agnosticism is possible. Unfortunately, over the years some of those who reject the belief in God have used mental tricks to convince themselves and others that only they could be correct.

For instance, the quote by Christopher Hitchens can be use to lay a mental trap for the unwary.

Quote:

"What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof."
— Christopher Hitchens

On the surface before one thinks about it, this seems quite reasonable. But as I pointed out his statement itself was offered without proof and therefore can be dismissed without proof. This sentence illustrates precisely the mental trick which many of those who attack Christianity and Judaism have used repeatedly over the years. They demand unattainable levels of proof for everything related to the Bible but offer no evidence whatsoever for their assertions. In other words they hold the theists to an entirely different standard of evidence than that at which they operate.

An example is the Bible critics who make up theories that people in the Second Temple era didn’t really value truth the way we do and just made up Jesus stories. They offer no evidence whatsoever to support that assertion, but lack of evidence doesn’t appear to bother them at all. On the other hand, there are compelling arguments that the Jews valued truth to an extraordinary degree and were very careful to preserve their evidence. For instance, when one takes a modern Bible based on handwritten manuscripts a thousand years AD and compare the text with the Dead Sea scrolls it is amazing how little the text has changed. Scholars have traced the orthodox Gospels through archaeological and manuscript research back to the first century after Jesus died when the eye witnesses were still alive, and have found no significant alterations in them. It is clear the early church took great care to preserve the text accurately so that even when the texts have gone through scores of handwritten copies, the scribal errors are kept to a minium through attention to details which is almost unthinkable today.

Atheists and agnostics often use the same mental techniques to support their beliefs. A favorite argument is to demand proof that God exists while claiming that they have to offer no evidence whatsoever since it is “impossible to disprove a negative.” In other words, just as Mr Hitchens has done in his statement, they hold themselves to an entirely different standard than they demand of their opponents. They know well they can’t prove that the first cause is unconscious and don’t even try. While they themselves have no proof for their position, they claim they don’t need any, but demand absolute proof from their opponents. In studying logic, one soon discovers that the argument that it is “impossible to disprove a negative” is incorrect.

Logic comes in two flavors, deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. The flavor of logic which I will discuss first is inductive reasoning. In inductive reasoning, one looks at data covering a large number of instances and tries to discern a pattern from which they can derive general principles. This accumulating of data, and theorizing about it’s significance, is what experimental scientists spend much of their time doing. As already noted, one common assertion one hears is that “it is impossible to prove a negative” using inductive logic. This is not correct of course, if one examines the entire data set, rather than extrapolating from a sampling of the whole. For instance, if I have a pond full of white swans and I say there are no black swans on my property, that can be verified easily by looking at every swan to see what color they are. If I find no black swans, I have proven the negative. On the other hand if I say there are no black swans in the world and look at my pond and again find there are no black swans it is impossible to generalize conclusively to the whole group. If you take an incomplete sample, the best one can do is to offer a statistical probability that all swans in the world are white. To rule out the possibility of a black swan would be logically incorrect.

However, it is precisely this type of logic which our atheist and agnostic friends often engage. When the Soviets who were avowed atheists, first sent a man into orbit in Sputnik, he decided to mock the Christians and radioed back that he didn’t see God anywhere. Often they will claim they are automatically right and don’t need to engage the data intellectually and claim that their position is the default position without the need of evidence or proof, since one can never “disprove a negative” anyway. In reality, the logically correct position, if someone believes the other person’s belief system is a null set would be to say, “statistically my position has a much greater probability of being correct than yours.”

Although they themselves know absolutely nothing about the first cause, they will argue that the first cause can not be conscious since we all know it is “impossible to disprove a negative.” In other words, for them, atheism is not a belief system based on evidence, but is an article of belief without any reason whatsoever. It is an article of faith. When someone is in that state of mind, one wonders if there is enough evidence in the entire universe to convince them otherwise. If someone has experienced a personal encounter with God or a miracle, these atheists know a priori it couldn’t be real before they even examine the evidence, since they themselves have never had an encounter with God and believe they can’t happen anyway. The reasons they offer to ignore the data which doesn’t fit their theory are many: other people are lying, they are delusional, they misunderstood the experience, they are emotionally unstable, psychotic, or it is impossible so there has to be some rational explanation based on science which we don’t yet understand. And all those reasons are perfectly valid since many “miracles” and many “religious experiences” have been demonstrated to be false, but they don’t exclude the alternative explanation that genuine encounters with God and genuine miracle really do happen.

The second flavor of logic, deductive logic, begins when one accepts a number of unproven and unprovable axioms as self evident and builds a logical structure on those assumed facts. Of course if we accept only those things which can be proven, we must reject mathematics since it is based on unproven axioms and since physics and chemistry are so dependent on mathematics, those fields too will have to be radically altered.

In the March 2006 edition of Scientific American is an article entitled “The Limits of Reason” by Gregory Chaitin which discusses mathematical logic. He began studying the logical basis of mathematics when he was a boy after reading a book about Godel’s Proof. He says the subject has fascinated him for the last fifty years and has inspired him to write his own book which inspired the article. Since the article is copyrighted, I will not quote from it to any extent, but would invite anyone who is interested in the subject to obtain the issue of Scientific American themselves. From his study he has arrived at the following conclusions:
1. Kurt Godel has proven that mathematics is always incomplete since there are true statements which can not be proven by any given group of axioms. Mr. Chaitin goes even further and proves there are an infinite number of true statements in mathematics which can not be formally proven.
2. He suggests mathematics should probably become more like physicists, where mathematicians are more willing to accept new axioms without logical proof.
3. He recognizes that some information is irreducible which means it can never be logically proven. When physicists run across new domains of experience they accept it as irreducible and invent new laws or principles to account for the new knowledge. He then suggests mathematicians should consider doing the same thing.
4. He says his new information causes the approach to science and math we have been following for 2000 years to “crash and burn” since it shows the “limited powers of logic and reason.” In other words, this information has effects which spread far beyond mathematics in understanding how we acquire knowledge and beliefs,
5. Mathematical facts are often “true for no reason.”

Personally, I don’t want mathematics to abandon proofs nor do I want to see science to return to the department of theology as it once was. On the other hand, it is clearly a mistake to regard traditional mathematics as the source of all mathematical truth or to regard science as a complete description of the universe. It is this limitation of reason and logic which makes the classical discussions about the existence of God inconclusive. Highly intelligent and rational people will argue opposite sides in good faith without ever violating the rules of logic and reason. Logic and reason are excellent tools to use in achieving goals and in evaluating the consistency of beliefs, but they don’t define the totality of the capabilities of the human brain. For instance, as high IQ is for the advancement of humanity, it doesn’t make someone good or moral, that is a spiritual issue.

These ideas have a direct impact in the discussion of dualism. One of the premises of dualism is that consciousness itself is an irreducible reality which exists on it’s own and is not completely explainable by other phenomena. In other words it makes no more sense to explain consciousness as completely a product of the material world than to explain the physical world as a product of the mind. Each has it’s own reality which can not be completely explained by the other. In other words both consciousness and matter-energy are irreducible.

Before continuing the discussion about dualism, I want to briefly address the traditional arguments for the existence of God which are mostly based on deductive logic. The Ontological argument has been known for a thousand years and is still valid. For instance a book by Mortimer Adler a modern philosopher, based on the Ontological argument, described how he successfully used the argument in his philosophy classes. By the end of the year every student no matter how skeptical at the beginning of the class would admit argument was logical. At the time I purchased the book, as a materialist, I didn’t find the argument compelling, but as I have seen the logical fallacies of the materialist position and have moved to dualism, the argument becomes compelling. Descartes was a duelist and has made an excellent ontological argument. Here is a link which discusses the Ontological argument.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-ontological/

The Cosmological argument, which appeals to the first cause, comes in various forms, some which postulate the creation of the universe which then continues to operate without intervention, and others which postulate not only the creation of the universe in the beginning and then the continued sustenance of the universe by the first cause. Science studies how the universe works and can not address why it exists or what sustains it in it’s present form. Those questions remain for philosophy and metaphysics. From the viewpoint of the materialist, the probability that the first cause is conscious seems improbable, since consciousness itself is contingent upon the existence of matter itself and only after an extended and highly improbably evolutionary development. On the other hand if consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe and not a byproduct of material causes then it is much more reasonable to believe the first cause is conscious.

For some, Quantum physics seems to undermine the Cosmological arguments based on the necessity for a first cause, since it postulates uncaused events in the material world and thus breaks the rule of causal closure. This is a two edged sword, however, since it also undermines one of the major materialistic arguments against the duelists who argue that consciousness itself can serve as an uncaused cause in the material world. Still, breaking the law of causal closure doesn’t necessarily destroy the cosmological argument since it still doesn’t explain why the universe exists or what causes it to self organize into the complex structure we find we live in. The universe remains a place of wonder and mystery.

The Teleological argument is very interesting since it argues that the universe is designed to sustain a conscious observer. The physical constants have to be exactly as they are to support life as we know it. If they changed even a little bit we could not exist. This argument maintains that this wonderfully ordered universe shows evidence of a designer, the Anthropic principle. Quantum physics has gone so far as to suggest that the outcome of physical experiments themselves change depending upon the observer. Light will travel across the universe for millions of years and it’s path is not determined until it is actually observed, then the path it has followed is instantly fixed in retrospect. The following site has a fascinating interview with eminent physicist Robert Wheeler about the implications of quantum physics and the importance of the observer in quantum physics. http://www.discover.com/issues/jun-02/features/featuniverse/ Whatever his beliefs about God, he is using a form of the teleological argument since he believes the universe exists only for a conscious being.

The Moral argument is one which I argued forcefully in the debate with Amirn. From the standpoint of the materialist, there is no basis to form moral theory at all except the “survival of the fittest” and the “selfish gene.” Eugenics, race purification, tribalism and nationalism are the best this approach has to offer. On the other hand, the understanding of the good God who loves us and commands us to love one another, gives us a robust intellectual foundation upon which to develop a rational merciful moral system. It is this moral system which has enabled Western Civilization to advance beyond totalitarianism and slavery. Our belief or unbelief in God has profound implications for society in this world, not just hope for the future. Based on my own knowledge and experience, I have come to the conclusion that people are born with an innate need for the spiritual which must be filled somehow, either through a positive view of a good loving God or through a much more destructive substitute for God. Only the belief in the good God can harness the human need for the transcendent to build a more moral, noble and free society.

As I pointed out, the first cause is completely inaccessible to the materialists. Although some scientists such as Dr. Wheeler are willing to think outside of the box and to tackle the philosophical question about the first cause, modern science does not address the question of “why” this universe exists and “why” the laws of nature work, but limits itself to “how” they work. At one time a conscious first cause was considered completely compatible with science, but most modern scientists limit science to repeatable observable causes, natural laws and leave the first cause to philosophy. They exclude miracles by definition since miracles are generally considered to be singular events, not explainable by natural laws. For these reasons, modern, science can not rationally address the existence of God in any way since God is excluded from consideration by the definition of modern science.

However science can address problems relating to the human brain and how it interacts with the mind and thereby provides us with important clues about the role of consciousness in the universe. Scientists such as Dr. Wheeler are clearly willing to consider the philosophical probability that consciousness not only exists, and is not only an observer of the universe, but also is an causal factor which changes the material universe itself. In other words, to understand the universe you can not study only inanimate matter but have to consider consciousness as a necessary active agent in the universe. This understanding leads strongly into the discussion of dualism.

It appears that to be able to entertain the possibility that the first cause is conscious, one needs to understand dualism. From the perspective of the materialist, to believe that the first cause is conscious is very difficult indeed. Since materialism leads inevitably to the conclusion that consciousness has no effect on behavior whatsoever, has no causative power, and therefore has no ability to be expressed in words or behavior, it is even impossible to prove that other people are conscious. If it is impossible to prove that people who are much like us are conscious, it is even more difficult to prove the first cause is conscious from the point of view of a materialist.

Logically, for a materialist, everyone else in the world could all just as easily be zombies, unconscious automatons, which look and act like conscious individuals, and I could be the only conscious being in the universe. Furthermore, if he follows his own rule and only believes what can be proven, he is then forced to acknowledge the truth, that he is indeed the only conscious person alive, and that everyone else are indeed all zombies. To think otherwise would violate his rule to believe only those things which can be proven and would expose him as either extremely inconsistent or stupid and illogical. Since materialists consider themselves the smartest people in the world, who always believe only those things which can be proven, all the rest of the world must logically be a zombies.

And yet consciousness does exist, I know because I’ve experienced it. Where does it come from and what is it? Could an unconscious first cause create a universe with consciousness? These are some questions which are interesting to ponder.

To understand the historic relationship between church and state in the United States one needs to have some understand of our history, the origin of our laws, and the theory behind them. As an English colony, the United States was established on English jurisprudence including English common law. The local exception would be New Orleans which has preserved much of it’s French culture. Those who look to France or the French Enlightenment as the primary or even a major source of our liberties are mistaken.

Since the Glorious Revolution in 1688 complete with a Bill of Rights in 1689, the English had enjoyed freedoms undreamed of by the French. Although there was not complete religious freedom since the Kingship was limited to Protestants, they were far ahead of most European countries. The Protestant Reformation had triumphed completely in England. Because the Pope was still committed to support absolute monarchs who had the “divine right” to rule so long as they were committed to the power of the Catholic heirarchy, they felt that Catholic monarchs were too dangerous to allow into office and restricted Catholic activities in other ways. As British subjects, the Americans were the heirs of the British system but felt relatively safe from a takeover by the Pope and welcomed the Catholics into full participation into the government.

On the other hand, the French were living under a monarchy with almost no freedoms for the average citizen. The Protestant Reformation which had begun in Germany in 1517 by Martin Luther was one of the greatest human liberation movements in human history. It provided the voice of dissent with freedom and dignity for the common man and was initially very popular in France.

At the time of the reformation, as now, the Roman Catholic church has always had many good decent people within it’s membership and I do not support Catholic bashing especially since none of the present day Catholics were present in the sixteenth century. However, the organization of the church had become very corrupted since it was an unaccountable bureaucracy which had an extremely elitist attitude in which they maintained that only the clergy had the ability to interpret the Bible or to decide theological truth, and had departed far from the teachings of Jesus. The church was organized along the lines of a totalitarian monarchy with extreme political as well as spiritual power. Into this sea of corruption stepped Martin Luther, a common monk and teacher, to bring about spiritual reform. He did not set out to begin a rival Christian church, but wanted to bring reformations from within, but the Catholic hierarchy preferred to banish ideas, including torturing and killing the people who held those ideas, rather than to reform. The Catholic hierarchy at that time began a nasty counter reformation in which they unleashed a vicious order called the Jesuits on Europe to search out and destroy the reformers.

Unfortunately for France and ultimately for the Catholic Church itself, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The French king sided completely with the counter reformation, and while pretending tolerance, set a trap for the Protestant leaders. At his command, with the complete support of the Jesuits, the Protestant leaders along with all the other Protestants in the kingdom were exterminated in a great slaughter called the Saint Bartholomew’s Massacre beginning August 24, 1572. By this act of treason, France was locked into a downward spiral in which led to the French Revolution, the reign of terror, and to Napoleon’s totalitarian rule and the eventual capture and imprisonment of the Pope himself in 1798. The Catholic hierarchy has never wielded the same type of political power in Europe since.

It was in this setting that the Enlightenment was born. Understandably because of the radically different political and religious systems in the various countries, the Enlightenment assumed far different aspects in England, America and France. To understand the enlightenment one has to study it in each country and trace the results of each approach.1

The English Enlightenment-Social Virtues

Since the English were the Enlightenment heavy weights I will discuss their version of the Enlightenment first. The French themselves recognized John Locke and Isaac Newton as the guiding spirits of their own Enlightenment,2 however their attitude towards Christianity was entirely different. Whereas the French philosophes were deeply antagonistic to Christianity, Newton was a committed theist who rejected atheism as “senseless and odious to mankind” and freely mixed his theology and science.3 John Locke wrote two treatise about government major portions of which were probably written between 1679 and 1681. He spends the entire “First Treatise of Government” refuting the supposed Biblical arguments for divine rights of kings by sir Robert Filmer in a treatise titled “Patriarchia.” In doing so he goes through extensive Biblical exegesis and arrives at the conclusion that the Bible doesn’t support the divine rights of kings whatsoever. Once he has disproven any Biblical mandate for a totalitarian system, in his “Second Treatise of Government” he then uses philosophy to build a intellectual foundation for a rational system of laws and a just government. His starting axioms included explicitly a belief in God the creator. In the Second Treatise he expands from his Biblical exegesis which he believed had proven that God had given all men equal rights to ownership of the world and had given them certain other natural rights which he then developed and explained in his second treatise.4 In other words, these most important English Enlightenment thinkers were both committed theists who both believed that in studying philosophy and nature, they were studying God’s laws.

Although other English philosophers such as David Hume were much more skeptical, as a group, they were never openly belligerent towards the Christian faith since they recognized it’s central importance to their culture. Even Edward Gibbon who authored “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” and viewed Christianity as “superstition” because of teachings such as miracles was not an avowed atheist and had more sympathy for Christians than for the “fanaticism of the rebels against the church.” He had little sympathy for the French Philosophies who “preached the tenents of atheism with the bigotry of dogmatists.”5 Some historians also believe more religiously orthodox thinkers such as John and Charles Wesley the founders of the Methodist church should be included in the English Enlightenment since they contributed so much to the intellectual culture of the time.6

Although there are many other important contributors to the British Enlightenment I will limit myself to the discussion of only one other who has made huge contribution to the modern world. Besides the scientific and mathematical works of sir Isaac Newton and the political and moral writings of John Locke, another important contribution from the English Enlightenment which has continued relevance is the book, “Wealth of Nations,” by Adam Smith which forms the intellectual foundation of modern capitalism and is still a starting point to understand modern economics. His theories have probably done more to enrich and to lift people out of poverty around the world than any other Western philosopher. And yet at the time he was better known for his book, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” of which he was quite proud. In contrast to the Renaissance morality which gave centrality to “justice” he emphasized unselfish concern for other people as the foundation for morality. The motivation for his book “Wealth of Nations” was altruistic attempt to provide a system of commerce which would lift the common workers out of poverty through a “system of natural liberty.”7

Regardless of their degrees of belief or scepticism regarding orthodox Christianity, the common theme they shared was the philosophical study of social virtue based on natural law within the context of their own culture. It was they who worked out the details of democratic government, they were the ones who discovered that slavery was a moral crime against humanity, and it was they who were the leaders in uplifting and empowering the common man through modern economic models. Meanwhile the Methodist led out in practical application of those ideas through economic empowerment and education of the common man which included the passage of laws outlawing the slave trade, and the establishment of hospitals, orphanages, schools and libraries. 8 It was they who brought to England and America the great traditions of philanthropy.

Encouraged by Newton’s success in finding mathematical laws which govern the physical universe, the English philosophers attempted to devise a “natural” system of morality which built on and enlarged on traditional Christian moral teachings but was founded on natural laws and not dependent upon special revelation.. In their efforts they codified Christian beliefs in secular terminology using what they thought were natural laws. Since their thinking was so culturally conditioned and since they were so completely immersed in the Protestant Christian teachings of love, charity and liberty from childhood, even the most skeptical could not imagine human nature any other way and postulated that humans were naturally altruistic and caring for each other. For Theists, their approach is still as relevant as are the blessings which humanity still enjoy from their works; democracy, freedom, capitalism, economic prosperity, and philanthropy. Their theories dig beneath the surface of the revealed texts and discover the deeper assumptions and principles which led to the particular statements in the Bible.

As free men the English naturally assumed freedom was the natural state of men. Although they still had cultural divides of class, they recognized everyone as basically equal in their natural human rights. The English philosophers naturally began their study of natural laws from the standpoint of the individual. It was the individual whose freedom must be preserved. It was he who was to perfect the altruism and the respect for the welfare of his neighbor which the British philosophers so valued so much. Basing their philosophy on these traits which a Biblical scholar will immediately recognize as the virtues taught in the Bible, they worked out an entire system of social and governmental relationships which still define English and American culture and government.

Unfortunately, because the philosophers derived their theories on the culture in which they lived and generalized these observations to human nature in general. Because many of the English Enlightenment thinkers based their ideas on these assumed natural human qualities rather than on a belief in the good God, they were completely undone by the publication of a little work by Thomas Malthus, “Essay on the Principle of Population” in which he taught that the population always increased “geometrically” while the food supply increased “arithmetically.”7 This law of nature guaranteed that there would never be enough food to supply the entire population. According to this supposed “natural law,” the poorer classes were by nature condemned to “misery and vice.” Human nature was not perfectible and society based on equality could not stand. Malthus primary target were the French philosophers for whose scholarship he had no respect, but he inadvertently brought the English enlightenment to a close as well. His thesis was that the basic assumptions of the philosophers was incorrect and therefore their conclusions were completely wrong. While the philosophers looked to a theoretical human nature to discover their version of truth, Malthus lookd at the real world and discovered they were completely wrong.

Although Malthus’ paper may have been ignored since it was hastily written and didn’t support it’s claims through extensive research, there was another man who was pondering his own extensive observations of nature and was looking for an underlying principle to explain what he saw. This man who read and accepted Malthus’ basic premise was destined to enshrine Malthus’ paper in history for many generations to come. His name was Charles Darwin. Darwin recognized in Malthus’ principles of the difference between food supply and the potential population growth as the engine to drive evolution through the struggle for survival and guided by natural selection. It was Darwin who combined careful biological observations with well explained theory in his books entitled the “Origin of Species” and later the “Descent of Man.” In turn, it is Darwin’s theory based partly on insights by Malthus which has brought any logical possibility of a natural atheistic theory of morality to a final close. The orthodox scientific theory of origins mandates that there is no room for genuine altruism in the biological world since any natural behavior must comply with the laws of evolution. Any individual who ignores those natural laws will have a reproductive disadvantage which will prevent their occurrence in the next generation. Since man according to the materialist reductionist vantage point is nothing more than one species among many, we also are bound by these unalterable physical laws to fight each other to the death in the service of our masters, the “selfish genes.”8

Since the philosopher’s basic assumptions about human nature from the perspective of the materialist reductionist were scientifically wrong, their conclusions were scientifically unsustainable and scholarship moved into other directions. And yet they left a lasting legacy which is still benefitting Western man. Scientists may not accept Newton’s good God who created an sustains the world through natural laws but they do still believe in natural laws. They have no idea why those natural laws exist and what sustains them, but they still accept them as reality.9 Adam Smith’s capitalism is still creating wealth for billions of people and has been shown to be the best way yet for a country to gain and maintain economic prosperity. John Locke’s idea about the basic freedom and rights of man codified in the US and British constitutions and have been copied in other countries which also enjoy many freedoms and prosperity previously unimaginable. And yet, according to the materialist reductionist, except for the laws of physics which they accept by faith, these theories have no foundation or intellectual legitimacy and these ideas are demonized accordingly. Based on the assumptions of atheists and agnostics, there is no intellectual foundation for our modern society and whether they realize it or not, their every thought and action is designed to destroy our culture and our liberties. Since they have no idea where these ideas came from, they can not rationally support or build on them even if they want to. For instance, what can “freedom” mean to someone who believes human behavior is completely determined by the laws of physics and chemistry or that human consciousness is a useless byproduct of the brain with no causative powers whatsoever?

The American Enlightenment-Liberty

While the English enlightenment was respectful of Christianity, the American Enlightenment openly embraced Christianity as the foundation of truth and liberty. While many of the English Enlightenment thinkers postulated that humans owned a basically altruistic loving disposition by natural laws, the Americans thinkers for the most part recognized God as the source of those blessings. Although people settled in America for many reasons, often economic and came from many different cultural backgrounds, the intellectual and moral center of the country was New England and the Puritans. According to Alexis De Tocqueville, a Frenchman, who visited and studied the United States in depth in 1831, about 44 years after the completion of the Constitution of the United States of America when many of the people who were involved in the Revolutionary war and in the framing of the constitution were still alive and could be interviewed. He made some important observations about the source of American ideas and culture.
Although there were immigrants who came for many reasons often economic, or to escape prosecution for crimes in the mother country, or to seek adventures. They were often poorly educated and were often not overly religious. In the southern United States slavery sapped the vigor of the culture. Because of it’s intellectual excellence, New England became the intellectual, cultural and moral center of the country. It was unique because it was settled by highly intelligent people who had been prosperous in their mother country. They made the difficult move from a purely intellectual need, driven by an idea based on their adherence to Puritanism which combined Protestant Christian beliefs with a deep commitment to democracy and republicanism, who were driven from their country because of persecution because of their perceived religious fanaticism. They settled in America for the opportunity to worship God in freedom and to establish a community built on Christian democratic principles. Because they were such a well educated intelligent group of people who were well informed about the cultural and scientific developments in the mother country, they naturally took the lead in the colonies. Their ideas gradually spread throughout the entire country and were those which predominated during the framing of the constitution. Because they had arrived in America from the beginning with the express intent of setting up a free democratic Christian society, they had formed already developed extensive experience in government by the time of the American Revolution. They were not philosophers sitting in a room dreaming up utopian ideas from space, but men deeply grounded in their culture which had evolved over thousands of years, who had deep moral commitments to altruism and goodness, and who had extensive experience in framing and operating a government.10 They not only had reason but morality and experience which are absolutely essential to balance and inform reason.

The Enlightenment in America was not the work of a few philosophers but was the product of an entire community all dedicated to the same goal, of implementing enlightened and noble concepts into society and government. It was deeply respectful of the cultural traditions which had evolved over thousands of years and recognized the vital role religion plays in preparing citizens to live in a free democracy. As Tocqueville stated, waves upon waves of religious fanatics colonized America as they were chased from Europe because of their express religiosity.11 They had a religious outlook which is very close to that found among the Christian Fundamentalists today, with a deep faith and commitment to the truth and the inspiration of the Bible. In is in the Fundamentalist and Charismatic churches in that the spirit of the founders lives on. Because they share nearly the same religious experience and the same moral and political outlook as the founders, this is why the Christian Right are the defenders of those principles of liberty and morality which make our democracy work. If the the anti-Christian secularists succeed in destroying Christianity in America as they have done in Europe, our democracy will have no intellectual or spiritual foundation, and tyranny will be the inevitable result.

The American Enlightenment also produced some notable literature. Thomas Paine’s tract Common Sense is a classic in which he argued for the Revolutionary war. Although his sincerity may be questioned since his tract was written to appeal to religious people to motivate them to rebellion while he later moved to France and joined the French philosophes in their anti-Christian enterprise. However whatever his personal beliefs, his work still stands. More representative of the general thinking by the founders are the Federalist Papers which have deep practical philosophical significance even today. Of course the most important documents from that period are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America.

The French Enlightenment-Reason

By nature Christianity is a religion of freedom. It is based on an inverse hierarchy in which the least is honored as “the greatest of them all.” It is a religion which entered a brutal totalitarian Roman culture and honored slaves and women as equal in Christ. It was also a religion which honored truth and promoted freedom. For instance Jesus said:
John 8:31-32
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
NIV

As I have already demonstrated, the Enlightenment assumed different forms depending upon the culture in which it arose. Whereas in England the Protestant Reformation had succeeded completely and the power of the Catholic hierarchy and the ability of Catholic kings to reinstate their totalitarian power had been broken completely, first by Oliver Cromwell, and then by the Glorious Revolution, in France the Catholic hierarchy succeeded in completely eliminating the Protestants. The Catholic clergy took control of the operations of the government through Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin and worked to centralize power in their king at the expense of the nobles. The church leaders completely lost sight of the origins of the Christian religion which was a religion for the protection and elevation of the poor and the humble. They didn’t look after the welfare of the common people as they should. The Catholic hierarchy was itself an elitist organization, ruthless in destroying anyone who opposed them, and promoting a totalitarian form of government. Therefore, any freedom movement in France had to oppose the Catholic church and would, by necessity, have at least some anti-Christian rhetoric.

Another factor which must be considered was the influence of the Jesuits and the Counter Reformation. The Jesuits were an order formed by Ignatius Loyola who designed his order as a secret army to destroy Protestantism by any means whatsoever. As expected from a corrupt hierarchy, his order was highly centralized and autocratic which spent considerable time molding it’s acolytes. They learned absolute obedience which was defined as the “abnegation of their own will and judgment.” To achieve this degree of mind control, the recruits spent years in intense training using techniques similar to modern brainwashing in which they became completely depersonalized. They also instituted an elaborate spy system composed of anonymous informants. They armed their human robots with a weapon called rhetoric. Since many Protestants were common folk and often not well educated, this weapon was quite effective. It didn’t mean to enter into dialogue or to explore a subject but to argue in a manner to win regardless of the facts. The Jesuits also organized an educational system which by all standards was excellent, using the latest methods and knowledge. Through these institutions they ended up educating many of the elites in Europe and through them gaining power. It is fascinating that Richelieu, Descartes, Voltaire and Diderot were all products of the Jesuit system.12 This could largely explain their emphasis on reason which was probably the best tool to combat the mind control and rhetoric used by the Jesuits. Unfortunately, reason became an end in itself and became their own magic talisman.

Although it appears the Roman Catholic church hierarchy was a completely corrupt unaccountable bureaucracy which not only was authoritarian itself and tolerated the Jesuits who used mind control techniques and force to control people, but it also promoted absolute monarchy However, despite the corruption of the Catholic hierarchy, many of the Catholic laymen, the parish priests and the monks were much closer to the understanding of the true gospel of Christ found in the Bible. No matter how much the corrupt leaders may have tried, they were unable to completely hide the nature of Jesus’ teachings. We can know this from contemporary writings. For instance Montesquieu, a Frenchman living in the early part of the eighteenth century, in his book, The Nature of the Laws, made the following statement:

Quote:

“The Christian religion is remote from pure despotism; the gentleness so recommended in the gospel stands opposed to the despotic fury with which a prince would mete out his own justice and exercise his cruelties.
As the religion forbids having more than one wife, princes here are less confined, less separated from their subjects and consequently more human; they are more disposed to give laws to themselves and more capable of feeling that they cannot do everything.
Whereas Mohammedan princes constantly kill or are killed, among Christian religion makes princes less timid and consequently less cruel. The prince counts on his subjects, and the subjects on the prince. Remarkably, the Christian religion, which seems to have no other object than the felicity of the other life, is also our happines in this one!”13

Besides Montesquieu’s book and example of those many true Christians still found in the Catholic church, the philosophes, who mostly ignored Montesquieu’s ideas, had the examples of the English and the Americans who embraced Protestant Christianity and used it as a moral foundation for freedom and democracy. They had ample evidence that there were real differences between the Catholic hierarchy and the Protestant Reformation so were without excuse in their blanket condemnation of Christianity in toto. If they were ignorant of this symbiotic relationship between religion and freedom, their ignorance was self imposed. They had plenty of opportunity to learn differently.

That Voltaire himself, who spent some time in England, had ample opportunity to learn from his British hosts is borne out in the following statement in one of his letters:

Quote:

“I know that England is a land where the arts are honored and rewarded, where there is a difference of conditions, but no other difference between men, save merit. In this country it is possible to use one's mind freely and nobly, without fear or cringing. If I followed my own inclination, I should stay here; if only to learn how to think. But I am not sure if my small fortune--eaten into by so much traveling--my health, more precarious than ever, and my love of solitude, will make it possible for me to fling myself into the hurly-burly of Whitehall and of London.” 14

As this letter demonstrates, the myth that the French philosophes came into a world of ignorance and shown a light of freedom and justice where it was previously unknown is a complete fabrication. The philosophes knew the freedoms the English and the Americans enjoyed. The anti-Christian secularists repeat those fables as if they were true so often that most people automatically assume they must be true. For those people who claim to detest superstition and myths, to maintain these claims in the face of so much evidence to the contrary is inconsistent to say the least. Their hypocrisy is further compounded by the following statement shows that Voltaire understood the necessity of religion in society:

Quote:

“If the heavens, stripped of his noble imprint,
Could ever cease to attest to his being,
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
Let the wise man announce him and kings fear him.
Kings, if you oppress me, if your eminencies disdain
The tears of the innocent that you cause to flow,
My avenger is in the heavens: learn to tremble.
Such, at least, is the fruit of a useful creed.” 15

Voltaire was not an atheist, he did believe religion was necessary for society, it was just the Christians and the Jews he detested. He hated Christianity and the Jews for the same reason, because he recognized the organic connection between Christianity and Judaism both of which he considered contrary to the dictates of reason.16 For a man who recognized the importance of religion in culture to attack the religions which made the freedom he had witnessed possible is a logical paradox. Unlike his modern counterparts who have no excuse, one wonders how he would have reacted if he had lived long enough to see his ideas actually brought into fruition. Whatever the answer, he was responsible for his actions and has to take the blame as well as the praise for the results of his writings.

And there were ideas worthy of praise. Although these ideas had been expressed by Montesquieu first, the philosophes did generally agree with him that there should be legal reforms to ensure proper justice, some supported religious liberty since they believed in the supremacy of reason which shouldn’t be bound by religion, they wished to decriminalize homosexuality, they agreed that some liberty of speech was acceptable, and they believed punishment should be proportionate to the crime. They also opposed slavery and the slave trade. They also talked about liberty to some extent although liberty was not so important to them as was their deification of reason.17 Exactly where their appeal lays for the common man is not clear, but it is probably their ability to highlight injustices and inequalities in the existing system which made their teachings so appealing. By constantly criticizing the monarchy and the church and claiming they had superior knowledge which showed traditional society was nothing but myth and superstition, they destroyed the old and promised something far better. It was this same process of highlighting imperfections in the present system and promises of perfection through a complete remake of society which not only appealed to the French citizens then, but continues to resonate with the masses today.

Because others had already discovered how, these philosophes if they had any insights at all, could have understood the path which led to freedom and democracy, if this was really their goal. Not only had some of them lived in England and had access to English literature, but there were others who could have benefitted from the American’s experience. Marquis de Lafayette, with the support of the French government, had spent time in America during the American revolutionary war fighting the British, and had returned to his own home a hero. Benjamin Franklin spent much time in France as the American representative. But it was not ignorance of the British and American experience which drove the French philosophes, it was something much more, their own ambition. They had something much more radical to bring to the intellectual table. Their ambition was nothing less than to completely destroy Western Civilization with the religious and cultural institutions which had evolved over thousands of years and completely remake human society according to their own theoretical constructs.

In retrospect, their hubris is obvious when one considers how they proposed to achieve those laudable goals. They didn’t begin their adventure by sending out teams of psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists to study human nature to provide them with an experiential basis for their ideas. Apparently, their confidence in their own genius was so great that the need for scientific studies never occurred to them. Perhaps because they had been educated in the Jesuit schools, they were so schooled in medieval forms of thought, that it never occurred to them to based their theories on experimentation. Perhaps, as the Enlightened ones, they believed they already knew everything they could possibly need to know about human nature and all that was left for them to do was to sit down in a room and think exalted thoughts, and their brilliance alone would be worth infinitely more than the accumulated experience of the human race up until their time. Perhaps they thought human society was imperfect only because the philosophers had never been in control. Since no one had ever sat down in a room and completely reinvented human society from scratch, using deductive logic as their only tool, and then seized power to make their ideas fact, perhaps they believed they themselves held the key to remedy the imperfections of human society which had so far eluded everyone. For better or for worse, it was this grand enterprise to perfect human nature through control of the governmental institutions through which they intended to wield that power. Ever since their example has inspired revolutionaries, who are motivated primarily by the French Enlightenment, believe in a radical reorganization of human nature by a totalitarian state.

If it was the example of Sir Isaac Newton which inspired them, they blundered since they ignored the scholarship which made Newton’s discoveries possible. Although he was a great theoretician, Newton didn’t really sit in a room and invent the universe from scratch, but studied all the data he could lay his hands on first, including the works of other scientists and even the writings of the alchemists. His had a profound respect for his culture and spent tremendous amounts of time studying the Bible. His writings prove conclusively that he didn’t regard the Bible as a book of superstition or ignorance, as the philosophes called it, but studied it in awe and reverence. John Locke himself, whom they also claimed to admire, began his study of government by extensive Biblical exegesis and then moved into his philosophical discussions of democracy based explicitly on the understanding of the good God found in the Bible.18 Secularists try to separate Locke’s ideas from his belief but how one can separate the intellectual product of a devout theist from his faith. God and scripture were too deeply entwined into his writings to successfully separate them. The philosophes claimed they drew inspiration from Locke, but ignored his reverence for his religion and culture, which made his ideas about democracy possible.

Although Rousseau himself was nominally a Christian, he eventually attacked Christianity because of those very characteristics mentioned by Montesquieu, those teachings which made impossible the totalitarian society which he wished to promote. Instead Rousseau called for a new pagan secular religion which would be a function of the state. Rejecting the experience of the British and the Americans who made religious liberty a priority, Rousseau promote instead a perfect union between religion and government in which the government and religion reinforced each other completely without the possibility of moral conflicts between the two. As an example of this type of religion, he praised Islam as the ideal religion, because of its complete union of religion and government. His idea of a democracy was one in which the civil religion defined morality unconditionally with the death penalty for heretics and in which the majority had absolute power over the minority and any dissenters would be put to death.19 Rousseau’s book, The Social Contract, became the Bible for Robespierre and all the ideological monsters who have drawn inspiration from them.

Since it is almost self evident that not everyone is equally bright, everyone is not able to participate equally in the rule of reason. If reason is to be the source of all truth and goodness, only the intellectual elites can speak authoritatively on matters of reason and logic. Therefore, the average people were to have little input into the enterprise expected to accept what they were told and to fall into line obediently. In other words, in the end, the rule of the philosophers was to be the as elitist and as authoritarian as were the Catholic hierarchy and the monarchies which they proposed to replace. One elite was simply replaced by another, the monarch by the enlightened despot.20

Following the same train of logic, morality itself was also taken from the common man and given to the elite. Since the philosophers were the only ones competent to invent the perfect civil religion which the commoners were expected to obey totally they were automatically the new priests and prophets. For the elites, not just any religion would do, but only one which would make the average person humble and fully compliant to the wishes of the new state. Of all religions, Christianity was one of the worst for this purpose, since it was designed from the beginning to honor and uplift the common folk, and gave them a rich tradition of spiritual teachings and philosophical meditations which would inevitably conflict with the thoughts of the new elites. This is why Christianity had to be overthrown and destroyed by any means necessary. Since reason must be allowed it’s true position as the ruler of humanity and since the philosophers were the only ones uniquely blessed with reason they were to be the arbitrators of the entire culture and government while also serving as the religious leaders.

As with the English Enlightenment and the American Enlightenment, the French Enlightenment has had profound and continued effects which influence daily life to this very day. Although the French Revolution failed to bring on a lasting and just government, that has not discouraged those folks who hate Western Civilization and long to see it destroyed and replaced with something new. Although the original Philosophes, on their better days, possibly believed they could end up with something similar to what the Americans and the British had only better because of their enlightened input, their successors have not been concerned that their new civilization be either free or democratic. In attacking Christianity, the radicals who seized control of the revolution, knowingly set out to destroy Western Civilization and to replace it with a totally new system based on their own totalitarian ideology. When they failed to remake human nature through democratic means, Napoleon, assumed the mantle of the enlightened despot, the rightful heir of the revolution who would bring their utopian ideas into fruition. His dictatorship, which was more absolute than any ever enjoyed by the monarchs who had proceeded him, was the rightful heir of the philosophes since he destroyed the old order of society, destroyed the power of the nobles, and proved his secularity by imprisoning the pope. It is Napoleon who gave the French Enlightenment it’s final form. It is he who set the example for the succession of secular, totalitarian governments which have blessed Europe ever since. The philosophes set out to create an intellectual framework in which the elites through the government would assume total control over the entire human existence, legal, cultural, moral and spiritual. They believed the Enlightened ones had the right to control other men’s thoughts. It is with this mandate which has propelled the European, ideological, totalitarian revolutions ever since.

An interesting effect of the French Enlightenment is it’s effect on reason itself. Although from the perspective of the anti-Christian secularist, it is completely appropriate to call the French Enlightenment the age of reason, their interpretation of it is in many ways an oxymoron. To hear the way some describe things, one is almost led to believe the French philosophes discovered a completely new facility of the human mind called “reason,” which before them had never been known among the human race or at least among humans living in Western civilization. It is as if humanity had suddenly evolved from the amoeba into full human intellectual powers in one giant step during the eighteenth century. According to their myths, this thing called reason seems to have been unknown and unused before Voltaire discovered it. They valued this new mental power as the source of all goodness and truth which alone could usher in the new utopia in which everyone is completely happy, healthy and wealthy. Because this new power had become their God, it is completely consistent that Robespierre had women enshrined as the Goddesses of reason in major French cities. Reason among the elites has became their god and traditional morality their avowed enemy, their Satan.

And yet there is an inherent contradiction in this scenario which the original French philosophers couldn’t have understood since Darwin had not yet perfected his theory nor had written his books. According to the theory of Evolution, the human mind is the end product of many millions of years of natural selection and our mental capacities are largely inherited. To the extent that the theory of evolution is true, this thing called reason could exist now, only if it had existed for an incredible long period of time and had been under positive selection pressure for much of human history. In other words, reason is a natural tool, which humans have used since the beginning of time for their survival. The theory that the French philosophes had discovered or invented reason is completely contradicted by reason itself. Not only that, but reason as a tool for survival, had to have been of service all along to enable the reasoner to survive at the expense of his opponents. By it’s very nature, according to evolution, reason had to have been of use to destroy other people just as much as to uplift and to sustain the reasoner. Reason is a morally inert property of the human mind which has absolutely no power by itself to ennoble humanity. The most effective use of reason is often when it is combined with cruel cunning and deceit to ruthlessly destroy those who stand in the way of the scheming tyrant. To be an effective dictator, one must be more cunning and have clearer powers of reason than the subjects to enable the ruler to control the minds and manipulate the behavior of the subjects. In other words, according to science and reason itself, reason can not possibly possess the magical powers with which the philosophes endowed it.

In addition, because the totalitarian movements which the French Enlightenment has inspired, whether they label themselves Marxists, Socialists, or Nazis, have always targeted many of the best and the brightest for physical extermination, their belief system has inadvertently become the ultimate experiment in dysgenics. Beginning with the French reign of terror, this system of dysgenics has swept around the world with the destruction of the intelligentsia of one country after another. When you systematically kill off your leading intellectuals as the French did, as the Nazis did, as the Russians did, as the Chinese communists did, as the Cambodians did, and as the Cubans did, if continued it can only lead to a diminished intellectual capacity among the group as a whole. In the name of reason, they have eliminated some of the world’s brightest people, who actually have the greatest ability to reason, since these bright people often don’t accept their intellectual nostrums. In the name of equality, they try to eliminate any selective advantage which may accrue from superior intelligence and to push everyone else down to the lowest level of existence. From the standpoint of evolution and natural selection, if reason and intelligence are the greatest good, the theories and social policies of the anti-Christian secularists are some of the most irrational ever invented. In order to hide those irreducible contradictions, they have set certain thoughts aside as beyond the pale, and only allow politically correct ideas to be expressed. They then project onto Christians those very irrational beliefs to which they themselves adhere.

In the end, the French moto liberte, egalete, and fraternite had been reduced to one thing, equality. This is not the equality of enlightenment, but equality of ignorance and slavery. All citizens are considered equal except for the dictator, the enlightened despot, who, to maintain the myth of equality, pretends he too is a commoner who was forced by circumstances beyond his control to assume the terrible burdens imposed on him by his duties as the supreme absolute ruler. Voltaire’s bastards always pretend to be common folks.21 One can not fault the ambition of the philosophes, but because they over reached badly, the results of their faulty philosophy have left a sad and broken Europe in their wake. When the French Revolution had reached fruition, it produced Napoleon, the great archetypical totalitarian ruler who after he assumed power waged aggressive warfare against other countries and thus spread the French version of the Enlightenment across continental Europe. People from all over Europe were welcomed into the new totalitarian order which has held sway in many European hearts ever since.

Conclusion

The Enlightenment is an important event in history which has had profound effects which continue today. There were three equally important versions of the Enlightenment each of which have made important contributions to modern life. In many ways the different forms of enlightenment are in competition and these varying interpretations of reality explain many of the conflicts we find in modern society.

The English enlightenment was an attempt by the philosophers to discover natural laws upon which to base a virtuous free society. Their success has brought us capitalism through the works of Adam Smith, democratic government through John Locke, and modern science through Sir Isaac Newton. Because they lived in an advanced Christian culture they assumed that Christian values were universal human traits. When Malthus wrote his paper and Charles Darwin published his books, those assumptions were rendered invalid. Although the philosophical foundations for their version of the virtuous society have been severely undermined, their contributions to human thought have benefitted people from many parts of the world and from many cultures and continue to benefit to humanity.

The Americans major contribution was to demonstrate that a republican form of government could produce just and free society if the members of the society respected and upheld the understanding of the good God found in the Bible. Because of this understanding they valued individual liberty including freedom of speech, freedom of religion. So long as the Judeo-Christian culture survives, our democracy will remain strong. Democracy has also benefitted other countries which have a culture which is strong enough to support it such as India and Japan. Whether freedom and democracy can survive in other cultures which have no history of individual freedom or individual responsibility is still an open question. There is nothing self evident in the proposition that all cultures at their present level of development can support the advanced democratic institutions necessary to support what we enjoy in the United States. Indeed, with the inroads being made into our culture by the French version of the Enlightenment, our own democracy may soon collapse into a totalitarian state.

The French Enlightenment was the most ambitious. Through the use of the human mind, with pure reason, the French philosophers proposed the total destruction of all the religious, cultural and societal mores which had governed Western man for thousands of years. They have succeeded in destroying Western culture and the Christian religion within Europe, but unfortunately the other part of the project, the building up of the perfect society with pure reason alone has not progressed so well. Human nature is much deeper than what they ever imagined, and the complexities of human interactions are much too complex for a single philosopher sitting in a room to understand through pure deductive reasoning. To try to replace social relationships which have evolved over thousands of years with untested theories of human nature and of governance is almost guaranteed to degrade the society which attempts it, and that is exactly where those of us who love Western Civilization find ourselves today. Europe as we have known it will probably soon disappear forever. Whether Americans will learn in time to save themselves or will follow the Europeans into cultural oblivion is still an open question.

1.A good book to which I will refer frequently is called ROADS TO MODERNITY THE BRITISH, FRENCH AND AMERICAN ENLIGHTENMENTS by Gertrude Himmelfarb. In 1991 she was named the Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government for distinguished achievement in the humanities. She has given an excellent overview of how the Enlightenment developed in the various countries and mentions who the leading lights were and what they contributed. I have used her characterizations for each version of the Enlightenment.
1. Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Roads to Modernity the British, French, and American Enlightenment, p. 25, (Random House Inc. NY, USA 2004).
2. http://www.answers.com/topic/isaac-newton-s-religious-viewshttp://unfailinglove.org/science_religion/discourse.htm
3. John Locke, Of Civil Government, the Second Treatise, p6,8, (Yale University Press).
4. Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Roads to Modernity, p 49
5. Ibid pp 35-38.
6. Ibid p 123, 129.
7. http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.0.html
8. http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/introser/dawkins.htm.
9. Scientific American, November 2005, The Illusion of Gravity, p 59 The author admits he doesn’t know the guiding underlying principle’s that explain the equations for string theory.
10. Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Penguin Books, pp. 41-55.
11. Ibid p 46.
12. John Ralston Saul, Voltaire’s Bastards, pp113-116, Vintage Books of Random House, Inc., NY
13. Charles Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, Book 24 Chapter 3 entitled “The moderate government is better suited to the Christian religion, and despotic government to Mohammedanism.”
Cambridge University Press.
14. Voltaire, letter to M. Thieriot 8-12-1726.
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/homes/VSA/letters/12.8.1726.html
15. Voltaire, Epistle to the Author of the Book, The Three Impostors
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/homes/VSA/trois.imposteurs.html
16. Roads to Modernity, pp. 168&169, the philosophes did support some classical liberal causes. Pp. 158-163, the support of liberty by the philosophes was lukewarm at best. They were more nterested
in the promotion of the “enlightened despot.”
17. Roads to Modernity, pp151-156 discusses their contempt for Christianity. Pp. 156-158 addresses their anti-Semitism. Voltaire even went so far as to make statements predicting the elimination of the Jews and blaming the Jews for their own persecution.
18. John Locke,
19. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book IV, Chapter 8 entitled “The Civil Religion.”
Penguin books.
20. Roads to Modernity, pp 154-156, The philosophes had little respect for the common man whom they regarded as unable to participate in their age of reason. Pp. 170-178. Their contempt for the common man was so great they questioned whether they had any goodness at all or even whether they should receive education other than indoctrination into their totalitarian society. Pp. 163-168. Their contempt for the common man also led them to pay lip service to liberty but in the end, to endorse an enlightened despot.
21. Voltaire’s Bastards, pp. 68-71.

I've written the following post to bring the lessons from the previous post on the various strains of the Enlightenment, into current affairs.

America’s Cultural Wars

Traditional American Society

The understanding of the various strains of the Enlightenment I presented in the previous post can elucidate many of the social conflicts on our generation. To set the stage for the discussion it is important to remind ourselves of traditional American culture. One of the last major public speeches in the American Enlightenment was the speech “I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King, a black Baptist preacher, who spearheaded the American Civil rights movement. Although Slavery ended with the American Civil War, government sponsored discrimination and segregation persisted. It was against this institutionalized discrimination which Martin Luther King protested. His “I Have a Dream’ speech is vintage American Enlightenment and deserves it’s place among the great American literature. Although I am quoting a small part, anyone who is unfamiliar with traditional American Enlightenment should read this entire speech.

Quote:

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
1. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.....
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" 1

His speech presents the traditional respect for the founding principles of our nation, a moral appeal based on the founding documents, quotations from the Bible, and a vision of love, brotherhood and forgiveness. Although he points out wrongs which must be righted, he then appeals to the goodness inherent in the hearts of his fellow citizens. His speech is perhaps the last great speech when the overwhelming majority of Americans shared in common the beliefs of the American Enlightenment.

Shortly after achieving success in many of the goals to end laws discriminating against black people, the civil rights movement was engulfed by the counter culture movement and the nature of the Civil Rights Movement was stripped of it’s original moral and spiritual foundations and was restated in Leftist ideology. Martin Luther King’s dream of racial equality, freedom, and forgiveness has been left unfulfilled, replaced by the new visions of perpetual racial separation and hatred, racial guilt based on skin color or ancestry, and special racial preferences for “victim” groups based on ancestry and skin color.

Since our Constitution and laws are the product of a deeply religious people who have openly found their rational for right and wrong in the Biblical concept of the good God, the strength of Christianity has been the foundation upon which our democracy has thrived while other countries slid into tyranny and mass murder. John Locke, who was a leading philosopher of liberty, was an expert in Biblical exegesis and provided strong Biblical rational for religious freedom and toleration. The government we have is the product of the Judeo-Christian culture which has evolved gradually over thousands of years of accumulated experience. It is drawn directly from Christian and Jewish theology modified to support a free secular society. Our Constitution was not designed to protect the government from the influence of Christian morality, but to protect Christians and other believers from coercion by the government. Judeo-Christian culture has always been the standard against which laws were enacted and interpreted. Since the land has always had a Christian majority which in the past was even larger than it is now, if Christian theocracy were possible, it would have happened long ago.

The French Enlightenment Arrives

The American version of the Enlightenment was almost unchallenged in the United States until the appearance of the radical Baby Boomers in the 60s. Although Communism was embraced by some American intelligentsia during the cold war, and there were always free thinkers who followed the French Enlightenment, it was not widely promoted as a replacement to traditional American culture. The same attack on the Judeo-Christian culture which had already decimated continental Europe began in earnest with the hippie movement and the accompanying antiwar movement. As in Europe it began with the intelligentsia largely on college campuses. In addition to anti-war protests, calls for free sex and open promiscuity, rejection of traditional morality, leaders of the movement like Timothy Leary’s called for the students to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” From his position as a University researcher, Leary claimed that drug intoxication would help people move into higher states of spiritual consciousness and combined his promotion of drugs with various forms of meditation and yoga. He took his anti-establishment crusade from campus to campus and provided an intellectual veneer to the hippy drug culture. Besides calls for “peace” and “love,” many openly sided with the North Vietnamese government, made strong and often false accusations against our servicemen while ignoring the atrocities committed by the enemy, and some such as Jane Fonda, a famous actress, actually made trips to Vietnam to provide propaganda for the Communists while our soldiers were being tortured in Communist prison camps. It was they who tried to force the French Enlightenment in the form of Proletarianism onto their fellow Americans. The American Radicals devoured the Marxist viewpoint provided by their Communist allies.

In Wikipedia we find about the hippies that,

Quote:

“Though not a cohesive cultural movement with manifestos and leaders, some hippies expressed their desire for change with communal or nomadic lifestyles, by renouncing corporate influence, consumerism and the Vietnam War, by embracing aspects of non-Judeo-Christian religious cultures (including much Eastern philosophy), and with criticism of Western middle class values.” 2

Besides the Marxist connection, we find another interesting connection to the French version of the Enlightenment in the following statement in Wikipedia:

Quote:

“Time and history revisionists have obscured the true origins and influence of the hippies, whose roots stretch back 100 years to Europe. Around the turn of the century (1900), there was an active movement in Europe to return to the natural life away from the polluted, crowded cities. This movement was inspired by authors like Goethe, Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha), and Eduard Baltzer, who wrote about how modern man’s material yearnings were taking us away from our balance with nature and leading to spiritual and physical diseases. Thousands of young Germans, turned their backs on modern society and sought a return to nature and the pagan spiritual life of their ancestors. They embraced a variety of radical lifestyles including vegetarianism, fasting, raw food diets, nudism, organic farming, communal living, sun and nature worship, etc.”3

Incidentally, according to his memoirs,, it was from this original German movement, which he called the “Artamans,” that Rudoloph Hoss, the Kommandant of Auschwitz, was recruited by the Nazis. By joining the Nazis, he hoped to be able to earn enough money to be able to buy himself his own farm for his wife and family to better live the Artamans life style, a dream from which he never deviated during the years he spent as death camp Kommandant. In his memoirs, he doesn’t express any conflict between his beliefs as a follower of the “Artamans” and his work as a Nazi.4

On one level, the hippie movement seemed to be young people having fun, talking about love, peace, and nature. Although they didn’t seem interested in academic rigor or science, they appeared to be having fun as they lazed the days away and tripped out on drugs, enjoyed easy women offering copious sex, and living by handouts from strangers or by checks from their parents. Their brightly painted Volkswagen beetles and vans and their habit of handing out flowers to strangers were quite endearing. But there was a darker side, contempt for our soldiers who were fighting and dying overseas while expressing support for the enemy, hatred for our government and it’s institutions, abandonment of our Judeo-Christian culture which had bonded the diverse emigrants from many different languages, tribes and countries as one, and rejection of capitalism. Although they talked about “love,” for them the word meant indulging in free sex, rejecting war to defend Western Civilization and Western values and selfishly following one’s own impulses even if this meant breaking the laws and taboos of traditional society, something far different than traditional Judeo-Christian agape love which demands strict self discipline and at times sacrificing oneself and one’s own impulses for the welfare of others. They also promoted conspiracy theories against their enemies, which included anyone who upheld traditional culture and was directed especially against people who owned a factory or business, since they were considered “capitalists pigs “who did little else but to deliberately destroy the environment and purposely make people ill by introducing poisons into the food and water. Through their conspiracy theories, the hippies exhibited a hatred which contrasted with their message of love and peace. In many ways they were nothing but spoiled children, who were good at finding things against which to rebel, but were unable to articulate any solutions, instead expecting someone else to correct the problems for them while they stood to the side to criticize them and complain that they weren’t doing enough.

Although many of the lighter, playful aspects of the counter culture movement which originally made it attractive have been largely discarded by everyone except for a few aging dead-enders in the periphery of society, much of the darker side has been absorbed and magnified in the culture, especially among the many former hippies who have cleaned up, shaved, had a haircut, and have now themselves become the establishment. However, many of them are still militant radicals, who are vocally intolerant of traditional American values and beliefs. For the radicals, their hatred for Judeo-Christian culture, Christianity, Israel, capitalism, American history and American patriotism remains unabated. Their love for outlandish conspiracy theories only seems to grow stronger over time. The counter cultural movement which began in France in the eighteenth century has finally arrived in the United States in full force.

Like the gorilla fighters whom they idolized, the revolutionaries against our country in their zeal to overthrow our Judeo-Christian culture, have embedded themselves into the society from which they can destroy it secretly from within. One of their strongest citadels of power is as professors in the humanities departments of our universities and schools where they can operate with impunity under the protection of “academic freedom” while using their positions on the faculty to block freedom of speech for anyone who they consider their enemies. 5 Schools serve as a perfect medium for destroying a culture since the children can be secretly radicalized while the parents innocently assume they are being taught basic American values.

Although the complete faith in reason by the philosophes has tarnished somewhat and the radicals have moved into a “postmodern” thought pattern, like the philosophes they still have supreme confidence in the perfection of their own opinions, consider themselves the intellectual elite, and believe that only they are completely rational in their new post modern beliefs. As with the original philosophes, they can’t quite agree about what they intend to replace our culture with, but since they can all agree the present system is totally evil it really doesn’t matter since they think almost anything is better than what we have now. As postmodernists they are spiritually empty, their only truth is that there is no truth, which excludes any possibility of a positive vision. The only way they can affirm their status as intellectuals is to attack anyone who believes in a positive truth. The radicals may not be certain about anything else, but they are completely confident in their accusations that America and everything it represents is evil, nothing but exploitation, conservative Christians are stupid, and Zionist Jews are evil. If America acts on the world stage, they believe it is always for selfish purposes, for empire, for corporate profit, to exploit and steal resources, but never in order to make the world a better place. They believe every culture is better than our own, every religion is purer than Christianity and Judaism, every lifestyle is preferable to ours. As greedy pigs, we consume too many of the planets resources and produce nothing of value in return and are out of harmony with our mother nature, Gaia.

Since the United States has been a republic for over 200 years with almost universal adult suffrage, those radicals who hate our country and hate the Judeo-Christian culture which made this freedom possible, have no alternative but to support totalitarian regimes. As with the French Enlightenment before them, they consider equality to be more important than freedom. Their path to utopia is through an “enlightened despot” such as Castro or Mao who enforces equality on everyone except for the ruling elite in which Christianity and Judaism with their teachings about individual liberty and moral responsibility to God are completely eliminated, and they the elite have complete control of the masses including their minds and thoughts. Probably one reason many followers of the French Enlightenment find Islam so enticing is because they understand the potential utility of the doctrine of submission for their totalitarian state, since they know once other people are convinced to submit their minds to Allah, it is an easy matter for the leaders to step in as Allah’s intermediaries, to assume complete control of their minds and to turn them into virtual zombies. Since the Koran taken alone is not self explanatory, and few have the expertise to interpret it without relying on often contradictory hadiths and sunnah, the religious leaders who issue fatwas have ample opportunity to insert their own wills into the doctrines and for all intents and purposes they become the voice Allah. For the unfortunate people who fall into this trap it is almost inescapable particularly if they are convinced they will go to hell if they question what they are told. If the leader are very skillful, the victims of the scheme will have no idea they are being controlled by other people. It is towards this end that the anti-Christian secularists in Europe and America are driving us. Although Christianity has been manipulated in this same way in the past, that type of manipulation is almost impossible now because of the Protestant Reformation with it’s emphasis on personal Bible study and a personal relationship with God without human intermediaries. Potential despots can only view Christianity as an abomination.

Another source of the French Enlightenment is Hollywood which has become almost completely a tool of the counter culture. The films which are produced today, of which they are the proudest, are those which trash our president, demean our military, make fun of traditional Christianity, promote conspiracy theories against traditional Americans, or promote sexuality outside the bounds of matrimony. Although Hollywood usually produces fiction, it is still very effective in promoting the principles of the counter culture. As those who attack Jews by promoting the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” have discovered, allegations don’t have to be true or even plausible to achieve their desired results. They know that if they say evil things about the target group often enough, at a subconscious level, people will begin to believe those accusations, regardless of their lack of evidence to support the claims. Although we may actually realize we are watching fiction, the images are still embedded in our memory and affects our subconscious thought processes. Hollywood, like Voltaire before them with his brilliant plays and writings, have discovered they can destroy our culture and undermine our values without ever taking responsibility to propose a better system. Although many of them vigorously oppose nuclear power plants and have decided that wind machines are not to their liking since they kill birds and bats and spoil the view from their mansions, they still demand that other members of society are forced to use less energy while the themselves continue to drive their limousines and jet around the world in their private jets. This same commitment to promoting the counter culture movement is also frequently found in the television and print news media which are largely monolithic and slanted in their political views and presentations.

Finally and probably most importantly, the unelected judges have discovered their own power in subverting the Constitution and making laws from the bench. We are witnessing today a potential coup d’etat by activist judges who wish to bypass the will of the people and to impose their own private opinions on the people through creative interpretation of the constitution. It is troubling when United States Supreme Court Justices, whose constitutional role is to interpret our Constitution by our own culture and legal precedent, regardless of their personal feelings, use international law to inform their rulings. By taking this drastic step, they are in danger of violating the spirit of the law if not the actual letter of the Constitution. Despite her rhetoric explaining her position, in the final analysis, Ruth Bader Ginsberg is clearly interpreting our constitution which is the product of the American Enlightenment with foreign laws based on the French Enlightenment. As the following site acknowledges with apparent glee, the conservatives are indeed upset. Here is how Ruth Bader Ginsberg stated her position:

Quote:

"Our island or lone ranger mentality is beginning to change," Ginsburg said during a speech to the American Constitution Society, a liberal lawyers group holding its first convention. Justices "are becoming more open to comparative and international law perspectives," said Ginsburg, who has supported a more global view of judicial decision making.
Ginsburg cited an international treaty in her vote in June to uphold the use of race in college admissions....Last month, Ginsburg and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Breyer discussed the death penalty and terrorism with French President Jacques Chirac during a European tour.6

When we discover is that one of the US Supreme Court Justices thinks it is “lone ranger” mentality for sworn officers of the court to rely on our own Constitution and our own history of common law in deciding cases and promises in the future to use international laws as an interpretive principle our democracy is in grave danger. She then goes on to state that she sought advice from the same Jacques Chirac who is the very personification of the French Enlightenment, who has been a major sponsor of the undemocratic European Union, and who rules over a racist culture which is falling rapidly to unassimilated minorities. She is seeking advice from one of the leading French elites to whom we owe the credit for the invention of Eurabia and the attempted destruction of the last traces of Judeo-Christian culture in Europe. Those “conservatives” who were treated to the widespread car burnings and church torchings last year in France, as the “youths” protested their inferior status as French citizens, are indeed upset that Jacques Chirac is advising Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the interpret of our constitution. In addition, in another speech, Ms. Ginsberg tells us she is looking to South Africa, which is a struggling new and possibly temporary democracy, with one of the highest murder rates in the world, for further guidance about how to interpret our constitution. Once again she is deliberately avoiding our own culture and our own laws to guide her legal interpretation.7

Now that she has established her right to go to foreign sources when legislating from the bench, one can only imagine the future damage an unaccountable activist supreme court can wreak on our country. For instance, suppose someday a Muslim activist is on the Supreme Court, according to Ms. Ginsberg’s theory of law, they would have the same right to go outside our history to interpret the United States Constitution according to Sharia law as she does to interpret it according to French laws. In addition, just because she is a fan of the French Enlightenment does not give her the right to discriminate against Islamic law. If she is going to look to France for guidance in creating opinions, what excuse does she have to exclude Islam? How can she justify shunning laws of the Saudi Arabians or those of Iran or Pakistan? For a nice liberal woman who claims to abhor discrimination of all kinds, and appears to embrace multiculturalism, what excuse can she give to justify her neglect of the contribution of our Muslim brethren. In selecting European laws in preference to Arab laws one could easily conclude she has a severe case of Islamophobia. Even if she believes it is right to be racist and is willing to consider only European or African laws in interpreting the United States constitution and discriminates against Islamic laws, she still has no excuse to ignore Sharia law since France itself will soon be enjoying the same benefits of Sharia which Saudi Arabia already enjoys. According to her theory, since Jacques Chirac, has become her legal advisor, why shouldn’t she lead the way for him in his dreams of Eurabia by imposing Sharia law on the United States now? For those people who love our Judeo-Christian culture and our historical constitutional government, one of the greatest dangers to our liberties today are activist judges who abuse their power by legislating from the bench.

The Effects on Society

The attempted substitution of our culture with ideas from the French Enlightenment has already caused considerable social damage. Since it was Robespierre who first enshrined women as the new Goddesses of Reason, it is only natural that those people who are replacing our culture with the French Enlightenment would also worship women. Thanks to them, we now have experienced a radical feminization of the culture. Unfortunately, rather than try to elevate and dignify those traditional qualities which are uniquely feminine, they have tried to force women to become as masculine as possible. If men have casual sex without emotional attachment, women can have casual sex also. If men can work at their jobs and put their careers above their families, women can also have a career and put their careers above the children. If men can fight on the front lines, so can women. If men can have casual sex for hire, women can do one better and charge for their sexual services without shame or guilt. But in addition to those manly qualities, we are never to forget women are also completely morally and intellectually superior to men in every way.

If the radical elements of the women’s movement had been primarily concerned with human rights and gender equality things would have come out quite differently, but in reality they are interested in a much broader political agenda, and use feminist ideology to attack traditional Judeo-Christian culture while largely ignoring the much greater gender inequality which occurs in other cultures. While Western men are denied their traditional roles in the Western family, the rights of women in other cultures are largely ignored. As multiculturalists they don’t believe they have the right to dictate to men from other cultures how they should treat their women. So far, the radical women’s rights movement has little to do with changing the status of women everywhere, and much to do with attacking and disrupting Western culture.

Whereas Robespierre’s female Goddesses were only available to those who were present during their ceremonies, the modern counter culture movement has done much more. We are constantly reminded of women’s status as Goddesses. Therefore gorgeous women’s bodies are put on display at all times and in all settings. Those women who have just the right shaped thighs and calves or the most beautiful faces are adored and worshiped. It is hard go through a day without viewing hundreds of airbrushed images of gorgeous, half dressed female figures posed in the most flattering provocative positions.

As the new Goddesses, one would think American and European women would be filled with almost inexpressible joy. But all is not well in the female part of the population. Depression and anorexia are rampant among the Goddesses. How can many women be so miserable when the entire cornucopia of the French Enlightenment has been poured out upon their heads? Perhaps it is because it is not easy to live up to the image of a Goddess. Many women, when they look into the mirror, don’t see the carefully airbrushed paragons of perfection which they know they are supposed to be. They are never beautiful enough, never strong enough, never rich enough, never smart enough. In addition, those women who wish to live traditional lives as full time house wives and mothers often find radical feminism completely fails them since traditional males are becoming difficult to find. Where the scorched earth campaign to destroy our Judeo-Christian culture and to demonize Christians has succeeded as in Western Europe, women have few alternatives. The anti-Christian secularists are so proud of their feminism, they think their treatment of women alone is enough to destroy Islamists. They don’t think women who are beaten, degraded, and forced to dress in black hijabs could possibly chose to remain in Islam once they learn about the exalted status of the Western female Goddesses, but some do. It is a lot to ask of a woman to give up her belief in God and to become one herself. It is much easier to be a simple housewife than to be a Goddess.

One of the major pillars of traditional societies is marriage, so naturally those who wish to destroy our Judeo-Christian culture, have made marriage a special project. One of the things the hippies were known for were their free easy women who offered “love” with no emotional or legal attachments. Marriage was considered optional at best. Their message has so permeated the society that 60-70% of black babies are now born to unwed mothers. If one’s goal is to destabilize society, attacking the family is an excellent choice and they have succeeded.
According to William Raspberry a black commentator:

Quote:

"There is a crisis of unprecedented magnitude in the black community, one that goes to the very heart of its survival. The black family is failing."...
“Father absence is the bane of the black community, predisposing its children (boys especially, but increasingly girls as well) to school failure, criminal behavior and economic hardship, and to an intergenerational repetition of the grim cycle. The culprit, the ministers (led by the Rev. Eugene Rivers III of Boston, president of the Seymour Institute) agreed, is the decline of marriage.”...
“When Moynihan issued his controversial study, roughly a quarter of black babies were born out of wedlock; moreover, it was largely a low-income phenomenon. The proportion now tops two-thirds, with little prospect of significant decline, and has moved up the socioeconomic scale.”
“There have been two main explanations. At the low-income end, the disproportionate incarceration, unemployment and early death of black men make them unavailable for marriage. At the upper-income level, it is the fact that black women are far likelier than black men to complete high school, attend college and earn the professional credentials that would render them "eligible" for marriage.”
“Both explanations are true. But black men aren't born incarcerated, crime-prone dropouts. What principally renders them vulnerable to such a plight is the absence of fathers and their stabilizing influence.”
“Fatherless boys (as a general rule) become ineligible to be husbands -- though no less likely to become fathers -- and their children fall into the patterns that render them ineligible to be husbands.”8

The devastation to marriage has been almost as severe in the white community. The following statistics of live births per 1000 unwed white women in the United States tell the story of the decline in the American family over the last century:
1940 3.6
1950 6.1
1960 9.2
1970 13.9
1980 16.2
1990 32.9
1999 38.1
With the easy availability of birth control since the sixties, more of the later births to unwed mothers are probably planned rather than accidents,. For many women childbirth outside wedlock increasingly appears to be a deliberate choice. For those who still believe in the Judeo-Christian culture including the sacredness of the family, these statistics are alarming.9

Now that a large percentage of babies are born out of wedlock, for those whose goal is to completely eliminate marriage as a viable social institution, the next logical step is to redefine marriage to mean any social arrangement whatsoever. Other than to use the power of the government to disrupt traditional society, there is really little reason two gay men need the government to sanction their own private social arrangement. Their private living arrangements should be of no public interest to anyone except themselves. Once the definition of marriage becomes fluid there is no stopping point. Two men, a man and a woman, three women and one man, a man and a dog, all can just as easily be defined as equally valid marriages. Since a majority of the people are unlikely to voluntarily change the definition of marriage, the heavy lifting will have to be left to the activist judges. Perhaps our Enlightened judge, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, would be willing to consider the Dutch model in interpreting the US Constitution when she decrees gay marriage. Once she has destroyed the traditional definition of marriage, and ignored the intentions of the founders, the next logical step would be for her to consider Sharia law and to legalize polygamy. After all, what right does she have to discriminate against Muslims? If the constitution forces us to accept the gays definition of marriage since everyone must be equal, there is much more constitutional support for the Muslim’s demand that they be treated equally when their religion allows polygamy. If Judeo-Christian culture is no longer the standard by which our laws are interpreted, how can the Muslims be denied?

In addition to the marriage issue, the activist judges have already brought considerable dissension into our country by creating law by fiat. In Roe vs Wade the Supreme Court created a new right not found in the constitution, the “right to privacy,” and thus inserted their own opinions into a divisive issue which should have been decided politically rather than by judicial fiat. Much of the political turmoil surrounding abortion would probably have been avoided if they had refrained from legislating from the bench and hadn’t removed the people’s opportunity to discuss the issue among themselves and to reach a consensus through their elected representatives. Once judges seize legislative powers not given them by the constitution, the damage they can do to our society is immense. Because of the division of powers, it is hard to conceive of our country falling into totalitarian rule without the cooperation of a corrupt judiciary.

In addition to damage to the traditional family, one of the most devastating effects of the counter culture is the difficulty in pursuing a vigorous foreign policy including a military option. By applying double standards to our military and doing all they can to undermine our military, they make the world a more dangerous place. Whether we agree with President Bush in his decision to invade Iraq or not, to walk away now before the elected Iraqi government thinks they are ready, would be disastrous for our country and for theirs. We owe it to the Iraqis to see this thing through and to help them to develop a democratic form of government with some basic human rights. It is not completely clear that their culture is ready for modern democracy, but we will never know unless we try. Using Vietnam as their template, the counter culturalists constantly criticize our leaders and constantly talk about defeat which they surely realize can only encourage the enemies of democracy who are willing to deliberately kill civilians in order to achieve their purpose. Since suicide bombers usually have no military significance, but are primarily a propaganda tool, the media know they can only encourage them by giving their actions undue importance while downplaying the successes of our military. Since they don’t support our country or our Judeo-Christian culture anyway, the counter culturalists have nothing to protect. Once they have destroyed our culture, what is there to defend? Why risk one’s life to defend nothing?

Conclusion

Traditional American society is founded on the Judeo-Christian culture which has drawn heavily from the Bible. Our constitution is a secular expression of teachings and commandments found in the Bible. The founders of our constitution fully recognized this fact and wrote into the constitution protections for the religious person from the government. To protect the government from religious expression was never an issue. It is the predominantly Christian majority who have preserved and expanded the liberties found in our constitution. It is the American Enlightenment which we have to thank for the good things found in our country today.

Although the anti-Christian secularists have raised the specter of a Christian theocracy and have demonized conservative Christians, it is they who have shown little respect for our Constitution and for our freedoms. Their primary goal is to destroy our Judeo-Christian culture and to replace it with the French Enlightenment by what ever means available. They have done this primarily through their positions as professors in universities and high schools, through Hollywood propaganda, and through activist judges who bypass the democratic process and impose their will on the people through judicial fiat. Because they have none, they have never articulated a positive message, because they are spiritually dead, their message can appear to have validity only by promoting hatred against those who do have a positive spiritual and cultural vision.

By bringing “International laws” into the judicial process, the Supreme Court judges are openly introducing the French Enlightenment into our jurisprudence. In so doing, the Supreme Court justices, who have not stood for election, having thus freed themselves from the boundaries of the Constitution and of those laws agreed to by the American people, have themselves become unelected law givers. In so doing, they have set themselves above the checks and balances built into our constitution, and have formed a new unelected government headed by themselves. Since to them democracy is optional, so long as the supremes support their values, the members of the counter culture completely support this oligarchic intrusion into our government. But the conservatives can’t help to wonder, when unelected judges set themselves above the will of the people and make up rights not found in the constitution and apply foreign laws to which the people have not consented, in what way are they different than any other unelected despot? Once oligarchy prevails how long can we pretend to have a government by the people and for the people? If the radicals win, it is almost inevitable that our country will descend into a totalitarian morass. Indeed, the French Enlightenment has finally arrived in our country.

Rene Descartes began his philosophical research by applying radical skepticism to his previous beliefs. Before setting out on his intellectual adventure he set ground rules for himself since he knew he would for a time have no moral or intellectual structure upon which to rely.
From his intellectual endeavors he came to realize that philosophically there was only one thing he could know for sure, that he was a thinking individual. Based on sound philosophical skeptical principles, nothing else was absolutely provable. There are just too many philosophical pitfalls to prove much of anything absolutely. From Descartes experience, it seems that if one takes absolute proof as the necessary prerequisite before accepting any belief, one will eventually end up a nihilist.

Descartes escaped from his nihilist trap by exercising faith in God. Through his faith in the good God, he was able to have confidence to move into experimental science and to supply the philosophical foundation for scientific studies. His faith was not an irrational faith or an unexamined faith, but a faith which was aware of the results of his skepticism and was appropriately educated in what are the fundamental issues which humans must confront as individuals and as societies. To have a health society, there should be a healthy balance between skepticism and faith.

The French philosophes also applied radical skepticism but didn’t begin by setting the ground rules recommended by Descartes to provide balance while pursuing the skeptical studies. By indulging in irresponsible skepticism, they destroy their own culture, their own political institutions, and their own religious heritage and set in motion a series of events in Europe which have resulted in the death of millions of innocent people. They were relentlessly skeptical of their religious and political heritage while applying blind faith to their enthusiasm for the perfect human utopia which would occur through what they considered “pure reason.” If they had actually used “pure reason” they would have realized just how irrational their belief in the perfectability of human nature through “pure reason” really was.

One of the defining characteristics which is widely shared by many anti-Christian secularists is their imbalanced philosophy in which they apply radical skepticism to traditional Judeo-Christian culture and religious beliefs while embracing blind unquestioned acceptance of other ideas which are completely untested but just happen to be the beliefs de le jour. Like the French philosophes they exercise a selective skepticism which is based on irrational personal needs which they fail to acknowledge or understand. The inevitable results have been the widespread nihilism found in Europe today.

European Nihilism

In Marxism, the connection to the French Enlightenment and subsequent French Revolution is unambiguous. Both ideologies are strongly anti-Christian and materialistic with grand ambitions to destroy traditional culture and replace it with an aggressive new culture and a new morality based on their secular ideology. Marxists themselves openly acknowledge their debt to the French Revolution in sites like this:

Quote:

Just as Cartesian materialism passes into natural science proper, the other trend of French materialism leads directly to socialism and communism.
There is no need for any great penetration to see from the teaching of materialism on the original goodness and equal intellectual endowment of men, the omnipotence of experience, habit and education, and the influence of environment on man, the great significance of industry, the justification of enjoyment, etc., how necessarily materialism is connected with communism and socialism. If man draws all his knowledge, sensation, etc., from the world of the senses and the experience gained in it, then what has to be done is to arrange the empirical world in such a way that man experiences and becomes accustomed to what is truly human in it and that he becomes aware of himself as man.

The connection between the French Enlightenment and the Nazi ideology is more complicated. Since France and Germany were traditional enemies, it would be surprising to discover that Hitler drew his inspiration directly from French Philosophers. Also we know, Hitler was a widely read man who drew inspiration from many sources so it is difficult to track his ideas to just one source. However, as a German nationalist, he explicitly favored the German philosophers, Schopenhauer and especially Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche himself appears to have recognized the intrinsic contradictions within the French Enlightenment and Darwin’s theory of Evolution and warned of the coming collapse of the European civilization. In wikipedia is the following explanation of Nietzsche’s beliefs.

Quote:

Nietzsche saw nihilism as the outcome of repeated frustrations in the search for meaning. He diagnosed nihilism as a latent presence within the very foundations of European culture, and saw it as a necessary and approaching destiny. The religious world view had already suffered a number of challenges from contrary perspectives grounded in philosophical skepticism, and in modern science's evolutionary and heliocentric theory. Nietzsche saw this intellectual condition as a new challenge to European culture, which had extended itself beyond a sort of point-of-no-return. Nietzsche conceptualizes this with the famous statement "God is dead", which first appeared in his work in section 108 of The Gay Science, again in section 125 with the parable of "The Madman", and even more famously in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The statement, typically placed in quotation marks, accentuated the crisis that Nietzsche argued that Western culture must face and transcend in the wake of the irreparable dissolution of its traditional foundations, moored largely in classical Greek philosophy and Christianity.

In other words, Nietzsche followed the French Enlightenment to it’s logical conclusions and found Nihilism rather than Utopia. He then accepted this conclusion as his philosophical starting point and from there discovered that there were was no longer any basis to believe in right and wrong in an absolute sense. Nietzsche who was unquestionably a highly intelligent person using pure reason demonstrated the profound moral and philosophical failure of the French Enlightenment. In a sense he was an anti-philosophe who used their sacred tool, “pure reason” combined with science to disprove everything they claimed reason supported, Equalite, Fraternite and Egalite.

He discovered two types of morality which are defined in wikipedia thus:

Quote:

Master morality
Nietzsche defined master morality as the morality of the strong-willed. For these men the 'good' is the noble, strong and powerful, while the 'bad' is the weak, cowardly, timid and petty. Master morality begins in the 'noble man' with a spontaneous idea of the 'good', then the idea of 'bad' develops in opposition to it. On the Genealogy of Morals, First Essay, Section 11) He said: "The noble type of man experiences itself as determining values; it does not need approval; it judges, 'what is harmful to me is harmful in itself'; it knows itself to be that which first accords honor to things; it is value-creating." Beyond Good and Evil)

Slave morality
Slave morality begins in those people who are weak, uncertain of themselves, oppressed and abused. The essence of slave morality is utility: the good is what is most useful for the community as a whole. Since the powerful are few in number compared to the masses of the weak, the weak gain power vis-a-vis the strong by treating those qualities that are valued by the powerful as "evil," and those qualities that enable sufferers to endure their lot as "good." Thus patience, humility, pity, submissiveness to authority, and the like, are considered good.

Nietzsche’s rejection of traditional Judeo-Christian morality which he considered “slave morality” enabled the Nazis who were developing the “super race” to claim philosophical respectability when they practiced their neo-pagan “master” morality. It is easy to see why Hitler felt free to violate traditional moral codes since, according to the best German philosopher, the “noble type of man experiences itself as determining values.” According to Nietzsche, to submit to conventional moral rules would have marked Hitler as a slave, not fit to be the leader of the master race. The Nazis weren’t insane or stupid, they were extremely rational individuals who took the attacks on Christianity and conventional morality by the French Philosophes to their logical limits and actually put the new paradigm into practice. In addition to Nietzsche’s attacks on Christian morality there is a strong link between Nazi racism with emphasis on race hygiene and Darwin’s Evolutionary theories which lead directly to the explicit racism found in his book, The Descent of Man. Scientific racism based on the theory of Evolution was already a strong movement in many nations when the Nazis took power and is the inevitable conclusion of the theory of Evolution. Rather than a mad man practicing junk science, Hitler was a mainstream, anti-Christian, secularist whose racist ideas were supported by a strong contingent of the scientific establishment. If Hitler had contented himself with executing mentally ill people, cripples, and morons rather than taking on one of the most productive tribal groups in German society, the Jews, he probably would have aroused little complaint from the rest of the world. But, according to the theory of Evolution, every group is in competition with every other group for survival, the selfish genes must be served, so to enable the German tribe to achieve their status as the “super race,” the Jewish tribe had to die. The “blonde beast” must be freed from the shackles of Judeo-Christian morality invented by the Jews to enslave them, the master race must be liberated to practice “master morality.”

If it weren’t for the French philosophes and other radical anti-Christian skeptics, the Marxists and Nazis ideologies could never have gained the wide acceptance they did among the European elites. The racism in the theory of Evolution redirected the radical skepticism unleashed by the French Enlightenment into scientific racism which led to Nazism, but left unchanged it’s original trajectory towards the despotic totalitarian governments with widespread massacres of helpless innocent humans which continues up to this very moment. As with Voltaire’s other bastards, Hitler reveled in his origins as a common man called to do great things for his people. However, unlike the original French revolution, Hitler replaced the sacred principle of radical equality with his scientific principle of radical racism and with it’s accompanying “master morality.” Although Nietzsche personally would probably have objected to much of what Hitler did, since Nietzsche himself was probably never able to completely rid himself of “slave morality,” there is no logical reason to suppose that Hitler had misinterpreted Nietzsche’s teachings. Once society has rejected all objective moral standards and has accepted the principle that whatever the leaders do is automatically right, there is no logical absolute upon which Nietzsche or anyone else could base their moral objects to the Nazis’ behavior. If the good God is not the source of moral truth, then inevitably the most powerful will define morality, for the anti-Christian secularist the inevitable conclusion is that “might makes right.”

According to materialists if they are logically consistent, freedom of choice is an illusion, therefore Hitler was no more responsible for his behavior than is a lion which kills and eats an gazelle. Since Hitler had rejected the “Christian superstitions,” logically he was morally home free. If it hadn’t been for the intervention of the Americans who still believed in the Christian “slave morality,” Hitler would still be revered as a mainstream European politician and his murder of the Jews would be widely celebrated rather than officially abhorred, unless he had lost the war to Russia, in which case Stalin would be the supremely honored European politician and his gulags would be the toast of Europe. Since modern post-Christian European society has no moral absolutes, they are unable to render rational negative judgment against the Nazis, Marxists, Islamists or any other totalitarian culture and are logically forced into the multiculturalism which is destroying the last traces of their traditional Judeo-Christian culture. Since multiculturalism is not a stable ideology it will remain their dominant belief only until one of the competing ideologies wins and becomes the new replacement for the Judeo-Christian culture which they have rejected. At the present it appears Islam will be the winner although the Nazis are strong contenders. By their failure to deliver a modern vibrant economy, the Communists have discredited themselves. Islam has also proven itself an economic failure but does provide a belief in God which many Europeans crave. As a pagan Hitler offers the Europeans a belief in God and also economic success. One reason the German people loved him so much was that he made the trains run on time and lifted Germany out of the economic depression.

One manifestation of the unopposed nihilism found in the French Enlightenment is the widespread appreciation of conspiracy theories. Clearly conspiracy theories didn’t begin with the philosophes since many of the pogroms against European Jews in the middle ages were based on conspiracy theories in which Jews supposed used human blood in their religious rites etc. However, the Enlightenment with it’s emphasis on pure reason was supposed to end such superstitious practices. Unfortunately since most purveyors of conspiracy theory are completely rational, “pure reason” was not up to the task and followers of the French Enlightenment are just as vulnerable to conspiracy theories as is the most illiterate religious bigot. The supposedly sophisticated and rational European and American intelligentsia are awash with conspiracy theories which are fully as outrageous as any found in the “Dark Ages.” Hitler made full use of this propensity for conspiracy theories among the Enlightened ones to advance his totalitarian anti-Semitic agenda using the pre-existing book called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion with devastating effect.

Nazi Denial

Although the anti-Christian secularists seem quite comfortable with the results of the Marxist regimes, they don’t want to take responsibility for the Nazi movement which could not have existed without the Nihilism from the French Enlightenment. In order to rid themselves of the responsibility for Hitler’s crimes (crimes defined according to Judeo-Christian morality which the intelligentsia haven’t been able to completely destroy yet) there has been a strong movement among the anti-Christian secularists to invent conspiracy theories that Hitler was actually a Christian activist, usually viewed as a secret agent for the Roman Catholic church. Although anyone who understands Christian theology will quickly recognize the fallacy in this position, and Hitler himself made clear his abhorrence for Christianity in the book, Hitler’s Table Talk, there is an interesting connection between the early Nazi movement and Christianity. Strangely though, this connection is not with the Catholic church as the conspiracy theorists propose, but with the Protestant churches. The German Christian churches had allowed themselves to become wards of the state by accepting money directly from the state for services rendered to the citizens. The compensation was proportional to the membership in each church. When the Nazis took power, they automatically gained control over the finances of the Churches and naturally decided to use these captive churches as instruments of power. Because the Pope was outside the country in Italy and was the authoritarian ruler of the church, the Nazis realized Catholics would be much more difficult to control, so they launched a vigorous attack on the integrity of the Protestant churches. Using their financial power over the churches, and by infiltrating the churches with Nazi sympathizers, they attempted to redefine Christian theology to support Nazi ideology and to make the Protestant churches the Nazi state religion. It was during this time that Hitler made some public statements claiming that Christian theology supported the Nazis which the conspiracy theorists quote.

As subjects of a totalitarian regime, those courageous Christian pastors who valiantly stood up for traditional Christian theology against strong peer pressure and government coercion, risked everything, their careers, their freedom and their lives. What occurred was a titanic struggle between good and evil, between the traditional pastors who believed in the authority of the Bible and the liberals who rejected the authority of the Bible and wanted to mold Christian theology to fit the new Nazi paradigm. Through great personal courage and extreme risk the conservative pastors were triumphant, and the Nazis eventually gave up on their attempted takeover of the churches. Although there were unfortunately many Christian collaborators during the war including some smaller churches who were more interested in currying Nazi favor than in standing for truth, the Nazis only tolerated them and never again considered Christian churches trustworthy organs of the Nazi movement. As Hitler gained absolute power in German society, his complete contempt for the traditional Christians become increasingly more apparent. Once the war was over, it was his stated intention to exterminate those pastors and priests who had stood in his way. (Richard J Evans, The Third Reich in Power, pp.220-233.)(Adolph Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, pp. 143, 287).

Besides holding his intellectual abilities and talents up to ridicule, those folks who wish to distance Hitler from “pure reason” often portray him as insane. This reaction is a natural consequence of the French Enlightenment which teaches that rational people are always good people who inevitably support Equalite, Fraternite and Egalite. For the Enlightened ones,who still believe in the secularist utopia, the only possible explanation for the Nazi movement is that the Nazis were either stupid or insane and hence not rational.

It was apparently not the Nazi murder which the Enlightened ones reject since their own favorite despots have been mass murders. After all they say, “one can not make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.” The proponents of the original French Enlightenment do support the murder of other people who oppose their ideology, but so far do not consider murder on purely racial grounds legitimate. The fact that brilliant, completely sane individuals, living in the light of pure reason, not given to religious “superstition,” can hate other races and can find pleasure in the torture and death of victims whose only crime is that their continued existence happens to be inconvenient to the murderer violates one of their fundamental articles of faith. That there are other mass murders who are also completely rational and guided only by pure reason who can kill other people just for the innate pleasure they experience in the suffering and death of other human beings is completely contrary to what the philosophe’s taught and completely destroys their naive assumptions. And yet there are multiple historical observations which make this conclusion almost unavoidable, while science through evolution and the “selfish gene,” makes this human trait scientifically understandable.

It is this natural human instinct to find pleasure through rape, torture, murder and slavery, especially of those from other racial or tribal groups, which Hitler forced onto the unwilling consciousness of the Enlightened establishment. Although Hitler’s killing fields were numerically smaller than those of the Marxist leaders such as Stalin or Pol Pot, his behavior is much more damaging to the Enlightenment Zeitgeist since the Marxists offered a universal utopian scenario to explain why the innocent must suffer and die whereas Hitler’s utopia was applicable only to the Germanic tribes. The exploding popularity of Marxists murderers among Western intelligentsia, demonstrated by the soaring popularity of Che Guevara tee shirts, posters and books, makes it ever more apparent that it is not the torture and murder in the death camps which are so shocking to the Enlightened ones, since their Marxist dictators have killed many more people than did Hitler, rather Hitler’s crime was to disprove their fundamental assumptions and theories. Because Hitler was a completely sane man, guided by reason and science, Hitler destroyed forever the intellectual foundations of the French Enlightenment, and exposed the empty promises of the secular utopia. He destroyed the dreams of the perfect secular society, administered by enlightened despots, untainted by Christian religious superstitions. Although the modern counterculturalists, just as the original French Revolutionists hold absolute equality as their fundamental moral principle which will bring on their utopia, the theory of Evolution, Nietzsche’s moral philosophy and Hitler’s government all proved that pure reason does not lead to equality or to the utopia predicted by the French Enlightenment. It is this profound disconfirmation which has force the Enlightened ones into full intellectual retreat, into politically correct modes of belief where some questions simply aren’t allowed, where some thoughts are too dangerous to be entertained, and where those who violate the thought codes and actually speak the unspeakable are charged with thought crimes.

Middle Eastern Nihilism

It is into this profound silence that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has spoken. By questioning the historical accuracy of the holocaust, he has shouted from the minaret openly what has been whispered in silence in the shadows by many other people. By supporting the wrong conspiracy theories, Mahmoud has taken the radical skeptical philosophy which the anti-Christian secularists have used against Christianity and turned it back against themselves. In the process he has highlighted the obvious point, that based on their radically skeptical methodology, nothing can be proven at all. Whether he understands the significance of his question, his point is clear, for the radical skeptic, it is possible to know absolutely nothing from history, even about something as fresh as WWII while millions of eyewitnesses are still alive, since it is always possible to question their accuracy and truthfulness. If we base our beliefs on pure reason, how do we know the information upon which we base our judgments are accurate? If one eye witness will lie, and we know they do, how do we know a thousand eye witnesses are not lying? Who can absolutely prove the news and historical sources are accurate and haven’t been tampered with?

Of course, Mahmoud is not the first one to promote conspiracy theories, just the most visible currently. Just as the holocaust, Jesus was a historical figure whose earthly life can only be learned by reading original sources. There are entire academic departments in Western Universities committed to exploring and promoting conspiracy theories against Christianity, about how Jesus’ disciples supposedly made up the gospels. The entire search for the “historical” Jesus is based on the premise that the early Christian church was filled with liars who manufactured Jesus stories whenever they felt the need. If you believe the simple eyewitness accounts, the “historical” Jesus is in full view in the gospels and you don’t need the experts to discover Him, but if you believe the eyewitnesses were all liars, the “historical” Jesus can only be discovered by extensive scholarly research which pretends to be able to magically penetrate the fabric of lies and finding the truth behind the stories. Why Jesus’ disciples, who believed so firmly in their stories that they were willing to die rather than recant their belief, would deliberately deceive other people is unexplained, but to the radical skeptic, since nothing can be absolutely proven, anything is possible. If we take their radical skepticism to it’s logical conclusions we don’t even know if there even was a Peter, a Paul, or a Pontius pilot. Caiphus’ tomb has been recently discovered but to a radical skeptic that can be easily explained. Although those searching for the historical Jesus don’t usually deny He existed since that would end their quest and their nice cushy academic jobs, they could just as easily make that claim since all the eye witnesses are dead and the historical records may have all been altered.

Following the same lines of radical skepticism, we are forced to admit even more ignorance. Who can prove Plato or Aristotle were real humans and that they were not invented by later generations? Since none of us have actually seen those men, we can’t possibly prove they existed. It is impossible to absolutely prove the existence of any ancient historical figure.

As Mahmoud has demonstrated, the same radical skepticism can be used on the secularists that they use on religious people. What about the supposed historical facts which the Enlightenment used to discredit the Catholic Church? There is no way to prove the “Dark Ages” were really dark like they claimed, and in fact many mainstream historians have questioned this designation. One could easily argue that one of the fundamental flaws in the French Enlightenment is that it is based on lies. I’ve already shown how the theory of Evolution disproves their basic assumptions about “pure reason” but their intellectual problems are much deeper. They are the ones who invented the term “Dark Ages ” in contrast to their “Enlightenment.” And it is true that they were more technologically and scientifically advanced than those living in the “Dark Ages” but by the same token we are more technologically and scientifically advanced than were they and have the same right to call their time period the “Dark Ages.” One could even argue that the Catholic church which has stood up, admitted the truth, and taken responsibility for at least some of their crimes against humanity by earlier practitioners hundreds of years ago, are more Enlightened than the anti-Christian secularists who refuse to take any responsibility for the millions killed by practitioners of their ideology in recent times.

Mahmoud again demonstrates that this radical skepticism is not limited to Western Civilization but the poison has spread across the globe, and like a snake has almost swallowed Islamic culture whole. According to recent surveys, 65% of Indonesians, 59% of Egyptians, 59% of Turks, 53% of Jordanians and 41% of Pakistanis deny that Arabs perpetrated the attacks on the twin towers on 9-11. [url]http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=253 [/url]About 3000 people died before thousands of eyewitnesses in front of television cameras, and entire countries are filled with people who believe it is all lies. The persistence of these beliefs are fascinating since Osama Bin Laden has taken complete credit for the attacks, justifies the attacks on religious grounds and openly recruits members from the religious populations which make up the majority of these countries. In other words, the majority of people in these Muslim countries are so committed to radical skepticism that no amount of evidence could possible change their minds. The only way they can possibly avoid a complete meltdown into absolute Nihilism is to carefully compartmentalize their lives where some beliefs are beyond question, and to carefully avoid questioning some beliefs.

No one, in any culture, can make rational decisions and develop good societies when they are so out of touch with reality. One of the signs of a mature moral society is the ability to recognize crimes committed against others, to take responsibility for those crimes, and to make corrections to try to keep them from happening again. To constantly blame others and shift responsibility away from oneself or one’s group, makes it impossible for a society to mature and evolve.

Along the same line, the Palestinians deny that the Jews actually have historical ties to the Middle East and that all those Bible stories about Israel are fabrications. Only a radical skeptic could make such claims but they do. They apparently don’t realize that this skepticism is a two edged sword which can damage them just as severely. Islamic history is just as vulnerable to the radical skeptics. For instance, there is no way to prove that Muhammad actually did all the things Muslims claim he did. Scholars using the same methods they have developed to use on the Bible have studied Islamic history and writings and have concluded that much of the Koran was written after Muhammad’s death by subsequent leaders who needed some “authentic” quotes to support their power. In addition, they have concluded that the hadiths are also mostly made up by later rulers. After all, no one can produce the original autographs and prove they were written by Muhammad. That level of proof is simply not available. The only way Muslims can prevent this from becoming widely known is to kill those who are promoting those ideas. That radical Muslims understand their extremely precarious position is proven by the fatwas calling for the death of authors such as Salmon Rushdie.

Middle Eastern Nazis

At first Nazism, which is a pagan cult and was the product of radical European religious skepticism, would seem incompatible with Islam which is a monotheistic religion which completely suppresses religious skepticism, but for some people they seem to fit quite well. Nazism has spread across the entire Middle East and has deeply infected all portions of the Islamic culture. It makes one question just how firmly those individuals who support Nazi ideology really believe in Islam. One could even interpret the sound and fury arising from Islamic countries as an existentialist cry of despair as their belief in Allah vanishes in a sea of doubt. Suicide bombers and threats to wipe Israel off the map and to destroy American democracy do not come across as acts of power, but as acts of extreme weakness, of desperation. It appears the only way for some doubting Muslims to convince themselves that Islam is true is to destroy other countries whose freedoms and prosperity betray Islamic ideology of superiority.

Bernard Lewis claims traditional Islam was once much less biased against Jews and points to thriving Jewish communities in Islamic countries in the past as his evidence. Although there are hadiths which teach that Muslims will someday be involved in an apocalyptic war in which all the Jews will be killed, that war has always been in the distant future and doesn’t necessarily seem to have affected day by day interactions between the two communities. But things have changed, and not for the better. Because of these hadiths, the present hostility was probably always latent in Islamic culture but didn’t have to be expressed in it’s present form. Whatever the reason, during WWII, the initiative to bring Nazi ideology into the Middle East was primarily from some of the Muslim intelligentsia, who went to the Nazis and presented themselves to them as their allies through the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who spent much of the war in Berlin working to strengthen ties between the Nazis and Islam. He set up Nazi SS divisions in the Balkans and prepared Nazi propaganda during WWII which was beamed into the Middle East. It was through his influence that the Nazi ideology has been preserved and continues to spread in the Middle East and into Muslim lands beyond. Even today the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf are best sellers in some Middle Eastern countries. By embracing the holocaust deniers, Mahmoud demonstrates just how far the Nazification of the Middle East has progressed. The Nazi ideology did not die in Hitler’s bunker at the end of WWII, but is alive and well throughout the Middle East. It is my understanding that Mahmoud has addressed the Germans with his appeal for a reevaluation of the Holocaust. From that, one could surmise that he wishes to resuscitate the old alliance between the Germans and the anti-Semites in Arab countries.

Just as in Western Europe and now in America, the Middle East appears to be inflamed in a crisis of belief. Certainly many members of the society must believe completely in Islam, but the actions of the leaders call into question the beliefs of the intelligentsia. Some may rationalize that their acceptance in Western Europe and America is a sign that theirs is the true religion but the absence of significant Islamic leaders in science, technology or human rights has to be a major disconfirmation of their belief that Islam is the only true religion. Spreading the religion by force and intimidation can not be as intellectually satisfying as winning in the open market place of ideas by actually demonstrating that Islam is superior by producing countries which are leaders in justice, freedom, prosperity, science and technology. Many Islamists have dreams that someday Islam will control the entire world, but at what spiritual price will that type of control come? Jesus asked a question which those Muslims who hope to win worldwide political power for Islam by force should consider:

Quote:

Luke 9:25-26
25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?
NIV

In what way can Allah be pleased with a religion which is spread by murder, lies and treachery? If Islam is a true religion, then Islamic countries ought to lead by example and should be models of justice, liberty, human goodness, scientific achievement and prosperity. People ought to be joining Islam because Muslims are the most attractive people they can find in the entire world not out of fear.

Conclusion

The French Enlightenment unleashed a radical skepticism which they initially applied only to Christianity to destroy it. Unfortunately this extremely toxic brew has broken free from it’s original container and has now destroyed their entire society and has moved into other cultures. Because they turned their backs on the Good God, Europe is now spiritually, morally, and culturally dead. Since humans can probably not survive without an intact culture, it is an open question whether the original inhabitants can physically survive the collapse or will they be replaced by newcomers from different parts of the world.

Although Islamic culture appears to be much more alive and vibrant right now, it too is extremely ill. When large majorities in entire countries are so out of touch with reality that they will deny the obvious events in history, there is serious trouble brewing. Mahmoud’s comments demonstrate just how deeply the Nazi ideology has penetrated Middle Eastern culture. When terrorists who murder innocent civilians and suicide bombers are among the greatest heroes a society can produce, it is in deep trouble. Lies, hatred, violence, racism, totalitarian regimes, how long can any people continue to support these things? Where is the reformer who will restore a healthy society and redeem Islamic culture? From his actions thus far, it is certainly not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is leading Iran down the pathway to hell.
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Although I have argued against the anti-Christian secularists who have killed and tortured millions in the name of atheistic theories, I do not regard all religion as a benign entity either. The litany of crimes against humanity committed by religious fanatics are for the most part true. Religious people have committed horrible crimes against humanity on a massive scale and continue to do so to the present. However, militant atheists have managed to outdo the worst of the religious bigots. I suspect that with Pakistan and soon Iran packing the bomb, we will soon see terrorists blowing up entire cities in the name of God. Up to now they have had to be content with blowing up a few thousand people at a time, but in the future they will be able to match the Nazis and the Marxists body for body in the scramble to see which ideology can create the most death and destruction on the earth. I also do not minimize the crimes against humanity by the Catholic hierarchy during it’s darkest days of apostasy. It is deeply troubling that a church which acknowledges that it has burned people alive in public because they hold beliefs which have not been sanctioned by the leadership still maintains that it’s leader the pope is infallible. It is my understanding that his doctrine was not even historically a traditional Catholic teaching but was forced on the church by the Jesuits during the counter reformation, another reprehensible group who themselves are guilty of great crimes against humanity.

However, as I have shown, the atheists and agnostics are presently ahead in the contest to see who can commit the most murders and who can torture the most people in the name of their favorite ideology. If this were a contest, the anti-Christian secularists are way ahead on the body count, but the game is not over yet. There is still time for the Islamists to catch up. It is true they are struggling right now and their coaches haven’t been as effective in perfecting weapons of mass destruction, but never fear Allah is powerful and soon they will also glory in the death of millions even if they have to join forces with the leftists temporarily to achieve the advantage. But the Marxists and Nazis have not given up the game and continue to press their advantage. The Communist Chinese leaders are busy arresting Christians and killing some of them. Although I’m not positive of the accuracy of the reports, I suspect it is true that they are also using Falun Gong members as involuntary organ donors which the government sell to those who are desperate for an organ transplant.

So for those of us who abhor mass murder as a sport, the enemy does not appear to be religion per say, but commitment to any ideology which has lost touch with basic human decency and goodness and puts theoretical constructs above the needs of living human beings. Just as religious fanatics such as the Islamists are extremely dangerous to any form of free prosperous civilization so are fanatical atheists and agnostics who have committed themselves to the anti-Christian ideology which has already caused so much death and destruction. By the same token, the enemies are not all atheists and agnostics, but those fanatics who are crusaders against Christ and who do all they can to undermine our Judeo-Christian culture which is the foundation of the freedoms and democracy which we enjoy. Just as with the Islamists, they abuse the freedoms extended by the Christian majority to undermine and destroy those very freedoms. Every fanatic believes fervently in freedom, for themselves that is, but they abhor the idea that other people may have freedom to disagree with them. The ideologue is unwilling to let their ideas compete on the open market place of ideas because they know other people aren’t as good and smart as they are and may reject their ideas. Therefore ideologues of all kinds want to force everyone else to shut up and let them do all the talking.

Western civilization is at war for it’s very survival and unfortunately a large percentage of atheists and agnostics are completely on the side of tyranny and strongly support the Islamists. Because of their blind anti-Christian ideology, the atheists and agnostics who are siding with the Islamists don’t care that the Islamists will ultimately murder them also. Although their utopias may be different, they have a great deal in common since they share an ideology of hate. At present the Islamists can only win with the help of the anti-Christian bigots, however the day is rapidly approaching when the Islamists will have defeated the few defenders of traditional Western Civilization and the anti-Christian bigots will no longer be needed. The day of reckoning will have arrived and the atheists and agnostics who hated Christianity so much will be enslaved and or killed by the Islamists like yesterdays trash.

Religion the Basis of Advanced Civilization

Countries are formed by groups of people who share enough in common to make them want to work together. It is obvious that if there is nothing shared in common, there can be no society. These ties which bind can be voluntary, based on common genetic inheritance (race and tribe) and on a common shared culture and belief system or can be involuntary where people are forced to work together by fear of a totalitarian leader. The strongest free societies would logically be those in which the members of the society share the most common traits. Patriotism is impossible unless the citizens believe the society actually represents them. On the other hand a fear society only needs an elite which is willing to impose it’s will on others by force to function. As history has repeatedly demonstrated, the fear society is the only option left to a society which has destroyed it’s cultural and religious foundations. This is why countries controlled by anti-Christian secularists are almost always totalitarian.

Based on the understanding of human nature described by Darwin in the book the Descent of Man and in the later enumeration by Richard Dawkins who has discovered the “selfish gene,” people are naturally selfish. This type of selfishness can coexist with a limited degree of freedom only for small primitive tribal bands such as those in the backwoods of New Guinea or the Amazon jungle where groups of closely related people band together for mutual protection and are constantly at war with other tribal groups. Although they may not fear an abusive central authority, they too experience constant terror since their lives are constantly in jeopardy from surrounding tribes. Instinctual evolutionary behavior will enable us to live in societies fully as complex as that experienced by a band of chimpanzees but beyond that people have to use their brains to learn how to organize their societies. It is at this point as people begin to develop advanced societies that religion assumes a more organized role in human affairs.

At their most elementary level, societies can function with less well developed religious beliefs which usually assumes the form of animism or spiritualism where religion contributes little to morality or the organization of society. In animism people believe in many gods who are often as corrupt as humans and have no interest in improving people’s morality. There is no thought given to what makes some behavior moral and what is unacceptable. Human life is dependent upon the whim of the gods. Since religious belief is unorganized people have considerable freedom to question their beliefs.

To achieve more advanced societies people need more comprehensive religious beliefs which prepares the citizens morally to function in a more complex society. For totalitarian societies whether called kingdoms, caliphates or dictatorships, the people need only primitive moral codes since they are forced together by fear. Even at this level, there has to be some level of morality to prevent total anarchy, but the moral code is determined by the whims of the religious and civil leaders who decide what is in their own best interest, and force those below them to either follow the code without question or to face torture and death. This type of moral code serves only the interest of the leaders and any benefit the common citizens receive is incidental. This is the type of morality which Nietzsche foresaw in Europe’s future, the ruthless morality of the powerful, Master morality. It is this type of morality which supported the Nazis first in Germany and now in the Middle East, supports the Marxists and fascist dictatorships, and soon will again dominate Europe’s future under the Caliphate as slaves of “Allah.” One of the key markers of Master morality is the absence of freedom to question or to modify the belief system since only the masters have the power to dictate beliefs. For a fear society, religious freedom is extremely dangerous since it dilutes the power of the ruling elite.

At the highest level are free democratic societies bound together by Nietzsche’s “Slave Morality.” In free societies religion and morality are developed to serve the common people and to bring the lust for power by the elites under control. The common people are honored, respected and empowered. Although there is an element of fear for those people who aren’t morally equipped to live in a free society, generally people follow the laws because of their own internal moral constraints. For a free society to function, there has to be a generally accepted culture with common moral beliefs and a mechanism to enable children to internalize those values. If these fail, the society will devolve into anarchy followed by tyranny. This is exactly what happened in the French revolution where organized government devolved into the anarchy of the Reign of Terror soon followed by Napoleon’s despotic regime. On the other hand England and then America which had strong religious traditions with a well intrenched morality both evolved into relatively free democratic governments.

For a free democratic society, religion assumes a vital role. The task of religion is not only to provide a general shared belief system, but also to prepare the individual citizens morally for life in the culture. If this fails, the nation will produce a generation of narcissists where the citizens are completely self centered like spoiled children. As such they are worthless as citizens of a free country. When a free society produces an entire generation of these selfish monsters, like those who dominate the baby boom generation, it is in deep trouble. Since well integrated moral beliefs are essential for a highly organized free society, when there are a large portion of the citizenry who have no internal moral compass, the society is in deep peril and may not survive. That democracies are easily destroyed is proven by the sad history of Europe which has been torn with totalitarian monsters, Voltaire’s bastards, ever since the original French revolution. If the citizens don’t have the moral integrity to respect the laws, the society can not survive and will inevitably descend into tyranny. The destruction of our free democratic societies exactly the goal of the anti-Christian secularists. It is this shared hatred of Judeo-Christian culture which motivates both the anti-Christian secularists and the Islamists to unite. Both groups have the same motivation, the lust for absolute power over their fellow human beings.

Of the various natural human traits which have to be sublimated and controlled for democracy and freedom to flourish, the lust for power is the most dangerous. Without this natural lust for power, the overwhelming need to control, subdue and humiliate other people, totalitarian societies could not exist. For there to be one master, there must be many groveling slaves. It is this “blond beast” which Nietzsche prophesied was in Europe’s future. It was this same lust for power which led the leaders of Europe to dream up the term Eurabia and to impose it on the European citizens without their knowledge or consent. It is this same lust for power, not love for Allah, which drives the Mullah’s in Iran to impose a Nazified version of Islam on their people and to kill Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and anyone else who shows the ability to think and who could possible challenge their power. It is also lust for power and absolute selfishness which motivates the Wahhabi religious fanatics. The aspiring despots in Europe have taken a long look into the Middle East and have found exactly what they have been looking for, a religious-political movement which will give them what they desire most, absolute power. Those in America are following closely in their foot steps although they will have to wait a few years since it usually takes a few generations to completely destroy a culture.

The Science of Morality

As I have previously discussed, science is only a tool, which can be used either to build up and heal or destroy and kill. Reason is also a mixed blessing which can be used either for good to bless humanity or for great evil to kill and enslave others. The decision how to use science and reason, either destructively or constructively is the realm of morality, beyond the reach of modern science, the realm of Amirn’s mythical “snow man.” And morality is exactly where religion comes into play. Although most moderns define science so as to exclude the acts of God, this has not always been so. Traditionally scientists such as Newton worked in the theology department and believed they were studying God’s laws in nature. Under the traditional definition of science, true religion could be defined as the science of morality through research into the transcendent. However, whether you define it as science or metaphysics makes no difference since the methods remain the same. As with any good science, the study of morality requires a complete commitment to truth, the rejection of destructive ideologies and a complete commitment to evidence, reason, common sense and logic. It also requires a contact with the deeper realities of human nature and a commitment to the common good which is unnecessary in the physical sciences. Discoveries in the moral realm must not only be true, but must also be good. To make any progress in advanced moral understanding, one must have the basic axiomatic belief that God is good. Whereas for the physical sciences, experiments are performed in the laboratory, in moral research, experiments are performed on entire societies and the results are recorded in historical documents.

There are other groups besides historians and theologians who can contribute to the understanding of how various religious and cultural beliefs influence a society. Anthropologists have done considerable research can provide some important insights into the interaction between religion and culture. Psychology also has much to say although psychologists are more interested in the integration of the individual person and often are oblivious to how certain personalities affect the entire group. Although they can provide important insights, both anthropologists and psychologists are often limited by their own secular world views. People are by nature spiritual, and any proper understanding of human nature must fulfill not only people’s physical needs but their spiritual needs also.

Because the human need for religion and spirituality is so profound the potential for abuse is equally profound. Since the conversation between a prophet and God is completely private, inaccessible to other people, it is impossible to confirm that what the prophet says is actually God’s will. Until we have crossed the point of death, it is impossible to know what lies beyond. No matter how firmly we hold our beliefs about the beyond, and no matter how strong our arguments, the future beyond is a mystery for everyone. Everyone knows there are at least some false prophets such as Jim Jones who led his flock into the jungles of Guyana, to a place named Jonestown to operate a commune. When some members decided to leave, the group resorted to murder to hold them and then committed mass suicide. Because of this potential for abuse, there has to be a mechanism for reality testing. Prophets and religious teachers must prove themselves. Just because someone claims to have talked with God doesn’t automatically make it so.

When religious teachers and prophets make pronouncements about the after life following death, there is indeed no way to test the validity of their statements, but fortunately these teachers are never satisfied to describe the hereafter and invariably will begin to make demands and claims about this present life. If their message had no impact on the present life, prophets and religious teachers would have no motive to continue. Indeed, although religions always address the transcendent, their primary purpose is almost always to influence the living. It is this impact on earthly life which makes religious teachings subject to reality testing. There are several ways this can be happen.

If the prophet’s message enriches himself at others expense, it should be obvious that the prophet is acting primarily in his own self interest. Does the prophet use his gift to accumulate wealth, does he take many wives, does he lead raiding parties and steal from other people, does he take captive women as his sex slaves, if so one can be sure that prophet is acting in his own interest. If an individual is unethical in one are of his life, there is no reason to think he is going to be more ethical in other areas of his live and his entire message becomes suspect. If the prophet’s personal life passes muster, one can check on whether he has made any predictions for the future. Did they come true? The Hebrew scriptures, teach that if a prophet’s predictions fail, he is to be rejected since he is a false prophet. Unfortunately, this test is limited since prophecies are often conditional and the prophet can always claim the correct conditions weren’t met. The Hebrews were also taught to compare the works of new prophet with what had come before and had already been accepted as inspired. The teachings of the new prophet were always judged by the previous revelation, not the old revelation by the new. This makes complete sense since morality advances gradually as societies evolve. Just as science builds on previous discoveries, so religious teachers were to build on previous discoveries. Ultimately the final test of any moral system is how it plays out in society. This requires accurate historical information passed down in the normal manner based on eyewitness accounts and historical documents, not pseudo history based on prophet’s own revelations since evidence based on his revelations would result in circular reasoning. The fact that so much of the Bible is dedicated to historical events without any claims whatsoever that these stories came through revelation is strong evidence that from the earliest days, the Hebrews understood this principle.

In addition to objective tests, as spiritual beings we can also test spiritual teachings through our own spiritual nature. Although prophets and mystics may have a more highly developed spiritual talents, most people probably have at least some spiritual capabilities. It is through this spiritual nature that God can directly impress on us His will if we are spiritually awake. A significant part of the genius of the Protestant Reformation was to empower the common people and to encourage them to approach God directly for themselves and to learn truth for themselves, rather than depend upon priests and religious leaders to intervene with God for them and to dictate their beliefs. Those who consider themselves the intellectual elite always distrust the people and will do all they can to weaken and to control any religious movement which smells too much of the proletariat. Yet this folk religion is precisely what is needed for democracy, since people who learn to know God for themselves and incorporate the moral principles from the good God into their own lives, no matter how unsophisticated they otherwise are, have fully prepared themselves for life in a free society. The reason the intelligentsia hate Christian fundamentalists is not that fundamentalists are violent or undemocratic, but because they can not be controlled from above.

This individual access to God doesn’t free us from the necessity to compare our experiences with tradition. Just as Biblical prophets were expected to support and build on their religious traditions, so the modern Christian who also believes he has direct access to God is required to compare his beliefs and impressions with his own religious traditions found in the Bible. It is this interaction of the individual conscience with the tradition which enables society to gradually evolve in a positive direction. In consulting the Bible one can partake of the wisdom of the ages which has developed through the experience of millions of people over thouands of years. Because individual humans, especially as they age, change slowly, improvements of society is often very gradual over many generations. There are limitations to what any single reformer can accomplish, and although we may wish otherwise, the moral improvement of society often progresses at a glacial pace.

Conclusion

Religion and morality are an absolutely essential ingredient for advanced societies. As with everything else, religion can and often has been abused. Only citizens with a highly developed moral sense can support and participate in a successful free democratic society. Those groups with a less well developed moral system will inevitably slide into anarchy and then tyranny. This is not a new understanding but was well understood by the majority of Americans until very recently when the anti-Christian secularists have attempted to take over the government.

To demonstrate that my understanding is not new, but was well understood by our founders, I quote George Washington, the father of our country, in his farewell address close to the end of his speech the following paragraph:

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Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness - these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

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It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

As much as I wish I could claim unusual brilliance or insight in this post, this inextricable connection between religion, morality and freedom was common knowledge from the foundation of our country. Christian theocracy is nothing but a Trojan horse built by the anti-Christian secularists to hide their own intentions to take over the government and impose a totalitarian secularist regime here much as they have done in many other places including Germany, Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba and etc and etc. And for those who disagree with me, try this little exercise, make a list of current Christian theocracies in one column and secularist dictatorships in the other column and compare them. Which list is longer? Which group has the worst human rights abuses? Which has killed the most people? I rest my case.

It is my intention to return to the philosophical question of consciousness as soon as possible, but to complete the discussion of the proper roll of religion in a Western Democracy, I think it is imperative to talk about the role of myths in society. I have made the statement several times that ultimately, whether a culture can sustain a free democratic form of government depends upon the morality of the majority of it’s citizens, but have not explained exactly how this works. I will go even further and say that theoretically, a group larger than a family clan, without a strong shared moral foundation can, only survive under a tyrannical leader. Conversely, people can only be free if they have a strong internal moral compass to guide them.

Many conservative Christians consider Darwin’s creation myth to be incompatible with their beliefs, but as I have pointed out in a previous post Malthus was a Christian who wrote his paper with the express purpose to disprove the basic assumptions of the philosophes. It is also know that Charles Darwin was indebted to Thomas Malthus for the basic concept which drove Darwin’s evolutionary engine.1 If one is so inclined, he will discover that Darwin’s theories can be very helpful in understanding many things about human nature and ultimately explain things in the Bible. This is especially true in supporting the Bible’s description of human nature as hopelessly violent without God’s intervention. Although I have described Darwin’s theory as a creation myth, it is technically incomplete since it describes the origin of species, not the origin of life. It leaves plenty of room for the Biblical belief that life originated by divine fiat. However, those who wish to use Darwin’s myth in understanding human nature must keep in mind that Darwin’s ideas just as all other scientific propositions are subject to change at a moments notice as more evidence is gathered.

In addition to biology, another field of research which is very helpful in understanding the role of religion in culture is anthropology, especially since it has made the most accurate actual records of primitive societies which will probably eventually be so altered as to be useless to understand the fundamental organization of human society. Anthropologists live among their subjects and learn about their daily lives and then try to step back and understand how the different parts of the culture fit together to form a whole society. Most of the individuals in the society understand their own motivations and their own role in the society but don’t understand the bigger picture of how those things all fit together to make the whole. More recently there have been biologists who have lived among the wild chimps and gorillas in Africa and made observations of their natural behavior. When one thinks about it, these people are animal anthropologists who are studying chimpanzee society in the same way that human anthropologists study human society. Since chimpanzees and gorillas don’t have much if any verbal ability, it is easier to study the effects of raw instincts on these highly intelligent animals. Because chimpanzees are biologically similar to humans and share many of the same instincts, it is eye opening how people would behave if they also relied solely on instinct unmodified by myths.. Indeed the parallels between chimpanzee culture and primitive human culture is amazing.

An interesting book which combines evolution and anthropology is entitled BEFORE THE DAWN by Nicholas Wade.2 Mr. Wade has set aside many of the romantic and politically correct assumptions about primitive societies and works from from real scientific and anthropological observations of human anthropology and chimpanzee research. He also avoids falling into the intellectual traps set by the anti-Christian secularists and discusses the positive role religion in society. As with any book studying human nature and human origins it is largely mythological, but his myth is well anchored in factual observations.

As I have pointed out previously, if the French philosophes had any intention of advancing human civilization either intellectually, scientifically or culturally they blundered badly when they attacked the fundamental myths of Western culture calling them superstition and ignorance. The reason for this terrible mistake is largely because they based their theories mostly on faulty classical deductive reasoning rather than on actual observations. Their beginning hypotheses about human nature were wrong and their conclusions were therefore also wrong. In other words, it was their own ideas which were based on ignorance and superstition. Because of their profound ignorance of human nature, in the name of ”Enlightenment,” their most ardent followers have committed millions upon millions of murders and unspeakable crimes against humanity. They have also completely destroyed some of the most highly advanced civilizations in the world, both in Europe and in Asia. Considering the terrible evil they have unleashed on the world, it is difficult not to attribute actual malice of forethought to them. But in their defense to be charitable we can hope that perhaps their teachings were profoundly ignorant and extremely arrogant but not intended to harm. If they could judge the philosophical and scientific advances made during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Protestant Reformation so harshly, what words could possibly describe Voltaire’s bastards, that hoard of murderers, rapists and tyrants who have descended upon Europe and Asia? By prying open the lid of radical skepticism, the philosophes opened Pandora’s box of woes the magnitude of which the world has still not been able to comprehend. The only question is whether this box can ever be closed again or will human civilization be driven into a world wide nuclear conflagration which will completely wipe out all the human progress which has been achieved for thousands or millions of years?

Although he is by no means the first, Mr. Wade has done a nice job of combining studies of chimpanzees with anthropological research into primitive societies and demonstrates the striking similarities between the two. He then outlines the evolutionary strategy followed by the members of each group. One of the most strongly supported conclusions in the book is that natural human behavior demonstrated in primitive societies, just as in chimpanzee societies, is extremely violent. The neighboring tribes are in constant warfare with each other with a much higher death rate attributable to violence than anything imaginable by modern standards. Ultimately the aim in to completely destroy the other tribe by attrition, genocide. He cites studies of the Yanomamo tribe in South America in which 30% of the deaths among men is due to violence which unsurprisingly is the same as the murder rate among chimpanzee tribes.3 If the death toll from wars in the world in general had been so high, during the twentieth century there would have been 2 billion deaths to war.4. When Yanomamo capture women they gang rape her by all members of the party, by everyone back home who wishes to do so, and then she is given to one of the men as a wife.5 This is the biological reality of human instincts, based on actual research and not philosophical speculations, against which advanced societies must struggle. A modern example of this very behavior is the genocidal warfare between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes in Rwanda, Africa which has been ongoing for about 45 years now. Unmodified by powerful religious myths, tribalism is deadly.

It should be obvious to everyone that it is impossible to maintain an advanced society when people who are unrelated only interact through murder, rape and genocide. People living under those conditions can not possibly have an advanced technology, philosophy or science. Higher level human reasoning and achievements can only happen in a society with powerful myths which hold together a just and good society. As humans we have a choice whether to live in a moral society with well entrenched cultural and religious barriers to natural biological behavior, or to revert to the laws of the jungle on the level with a band of chimpanzees. If we want to live in a culture which is shaped by the human mind and by the human will, we will have no choice but to accept the truth of the religious and moral myths which make this possible. Powerful myths are absolutely essential for the survival of civilization.

For those who object because religious myths are unprovable, it should be sufficient to point out that anti-Christian secularism is just as dependent upon unprovable myths as the most unenlightened religion. The only way to avoid myths completely is to embrace total nihilism, and even then you have not avoided myths since nihilism itself is an unprovable myth. The choice then is not whether we will hold myths or not, but whether the myths we choose to believe are positive or not. Ultimately, whether we recognize it or not, everyone, even he who considers himself the most skeptical, walks by faith in something. Our choice as humans is whether we wish to place our faith in positive things which uplift humanity or in negative ideologies which destroy and kill.

In order to overcome the immense passion for violence and lust for power which is natural in the human heart it takes powerful myths. Even then, the natural human lust for power and mayhem will occasionally break out in spasms of violence. When that happens, it is imperative that the society recognizes the problem and tries to repair he damage done to they myths. To take a great big country like the United States with people from all races and tribes and unite them into a single cohesive group as a country takes powerful myths indeed. That this country has become the greatest and freest democracy in the history of the world is testimony to the great power of the underlying myths which make this all possible. It is these very myths upon which this great society is built against which the anti-Christian secularists struggle. It is their life’s mission to destroy those myths and ultimately to destroy the civilization which they support. Since their own myths are powerless to produce a just and good society, the results will inevitably be total tyranny and possible genocide. Myths are the life blood of civilization, and the anti-Christian secularists are sucking the very life blood from society like a hoard of vampires.

It is unfortunate that to many people “myth” means “falsehood.” Clearly there is always an element of the fantastic in all myths but that doesn’t mean they are not true. Let me give an example from contemporary science. Most people who read much will encounter the idea that space is curve and may even see pictures that purport to demonstrate what curved space would look like. Anyone who supposes those drawings are actually pictures of reality is mistaken, since there is no way to portray what actual curved space would look like. Those drawings are simply models, metaphors, for the reality which can not be portrayed. At an even simpler level. when we view a map on a piece of paper, we are viewing a model of reality which differs from reality in substantial ways. This doesn’t mean maps are lies or superstition, but it does mean they are not a completely accurate representation of reality. So far I have not met anyone an a campaign to rid the world of paper maps, so why should we force our society to navigate without the myths, the spiritual maps, which our ancestors have drawn over thousands of years through painful experience? By myths I don’t mean lies or falsehoods, but something much deeper, much more basic in human society. Religious myths are by no means simply irrational mems as the anti-Christian secularists often claim but are vital ingredients of any culture which is designed to surpass natural human instincts.

Here is how Wikipedia defines myth:

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Myth may refer to:

Mythology, mythography, or folkloristics. In these academic fields, a myth (mythos) is a sacred story concerning the origins of the world or how the world and the creatures in it came to have their present form. The active beings in myths are generally gods and heroes. Myths take place before time, before history begins. In saying that a myth is a sacred narrative, what is meant is that a myth is believed to be true by people who attach religious or spiritual significance to it. Use of the term by scholars does not imply that the narrative is either true or false. See also legend and tale.
A myth, in popular use, is something that is widely believed but false. This usage, which is often pejorative, arose from labeling the religious stories and beliefs of other cultures as being incorrect, but it has spread to cover non-religious beliefs as well. Because of this usage, many people take offense when the religious narratives they believe to be true are called myths (see Religion and mythology for more information). This usage is frequently confused with fiction, legend, fairy tale, folklore, fable, and urban legend, each of which has a distinct meaning in academia.
http://www.answers.com/myth&r=67

Contrary to the claims of the multiculturalists and anti-Christian secularists who label them all as lies and superstition, not all myths are the same. In order for myths to counteract the natural human instincts to kill, steal, rape and enslave other people, they have to actually contain element which counteract those human tendencies. Unfortunately, in many cultures myths are used to stoke the natural human blood lust rather than to quench it. For instance, the Aztecs invoked the gods to explain their need for wars to capture members of enemy tribes to supply human sacrifices. In order to satisfy their blood lust they would first scald the prisoners on a fire to inflict maximum suffering before they led them up the steps to the altar where their hearts were cut out and offered to the gods. In this society their religions and myths actually encouraged the natural human instincts for violence. It is absurd to claim that those myths are no different that the Christian myths of an infinite God who loves us with supreme love. On the Christian side, we have the all powerful God who voluntarily died to save His human subjects while on the other hand we have the Aztec gods who demanded constant human sacrifices to allow the sun to rise in the morning. It doesn’t take much thought to realize that there is a great deal of difference between those myths and a great deal of difference between the societies those myths supported. The belief in the loving God has been a major component of the founding myth upon which Western Civilization is founded. As the creator of all humanity, it is His command that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves and cooperate as a united society. Although this myth has not suppressed the blood lust completely, it has contribute greatly to human peace, freedom and prosperity. Without this good God, Western Civilization with all it’s power, it’s philosophy, it’s science and its freedom is dead.

Nietzsche clearly understood this as so clearly stated below:

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God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it?
Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann

Quoting our Wikipedia once again:

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"God is dead" is not meant literally, as in "God is now physically dead"; rather, it is Nietzsche's way of saying that the idea of God is no longer capable of acting as a source of any moral code or teleology. Nietzsche recognizes the crisis which the death of God represents for existing moral considerations, because "When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident.... By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands." This is why in "The Madman", the madman addresses not believers, but atheists the problem is to retain any system of values in the absence of a divine order.”
“The death of God is a way of saying that humans are no longer able to believe in any such cosmic order since they themselves no longer recognize it. The death of God will lead, Nietzsche says, not only to the rejection of a belief of cosmic or physical order but also to a rejection of absolute values themselves; to the rejection of belief in an objective and universal moral law, binding upon all individuals. In this manner, it leads to nihilism, and it is what Nietzsche worked to find a solution for by re-evaluating the foundations of human values. This meant, to Nietzsche, looking for foundations that went deeper than the Christian values most people refuse to look beyond.”6

Of course many people have looked beyond and seen nothing except tyranny and violence. Nietzsche was very good at describing the problem, but his proposed solution was nothing but a return to primitive tribal society with all the violence and mayhem which that entailed.

But it is unnecessary to chase God from his universe. Science and philosophy have not disproved God’s existence or His sovereignty over the universe. There are serious drawbacks to the materialist reductionist philosophy and the myth that consciousness can have no causative effect on matter. The fact that I am consciously thinking thoughts and typing them down in such a way to accurately describe my ideas should not be possible. But I have the delusion that this has actually happened, but perhaps you the reader just experience random letters. That decision is up to you the reader. Are these words the product of conscious thought?